Leaf from a Dutch Book of Hours

This is an original leaf from a late-medieval manuscript prayer book, the Book of Hours. The text consists of 20 lines, ruled in red, written in Dutch, with dark brown ink in Gothic script on animal vellum. There are single line initials alternating in gold and blue and some text letters are highlighted in red. This sheets has one illuminated three line initial of gold on a mauve and blue ground with delicate white floral tracery (which opens the Hours at Sext); and two line initials in blue. A panel border in a graceful leafy vine design with flowers in black, burnished and brushed gold frames one side of the text.Book of Hours are personal prayer books of a devout and status-conscious society and are not only works of art, but cultural documents of the their time. They reveal a unique combination of sacred and secular imagery – made of the finest materials, by the best craftsmen, for a small audience, which could both appreciate and afford them.

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