The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This mid-fifteenth-century illuminated Book of Hours is written entirely in Dutch on fine parchment and is remarkable for its eighteen grisaille miniatures. This technique, wherein the figures are modeled primarily in a gray wash, became a favorite in the Netherlands. The hand behind the miniatures in this manuscript has been identified with a group of artists known as the Masters of the Delft Grisailles. The manuscript has been grouped with more than a dozen related works, including New York, Morgan Ms. M.349; London, Victoria and Albert Geo. Reid Ms. 32; Leiden, BPL Ms. 224; Brussels, BR Ms. 21696; Antwerp, Plantin Moretus Ms. 49; and The Hague, KB Ms. 74 G 35. The manuscript is comprised of 152 folios and is almost completely intact, lacking only two miniatures. It retains its original brown leather binding decorated with mythological beasts and a now illegible inscription. The calendar is for the Use of Utrecht, which helps localize its original ownership, as might a mostly erased ownership inscription that has been partially recovered. Good impressions of two circular pilgrim badges, now removed, are visible on fol. 112v.
Written in Gothic bookhand; one hand responsible for the majority of text; a different, less professional hand responsible for added prayers in the same script on fols. 114v-115v and 128v-130r
artist: Masters of the Delft Grisailles
Principal cataloger: Marrow, James
Cataloger: Devine, Alex
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Dutschke, Consuelo
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Valle, Chiara
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Cockerell, Sydney Carlye. Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1908, no. 243, pl. 149.
Byvanck, Alexander Willem, and Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerf. La miniature hollandaise dans les manuscrits des 14e, 15e et 16e siècles. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1922-26, p. 24, no. 45, pl. 13.
Da Costa Greene, Belle, and Meta P. Harrsen. The Pierpont Morgan Library, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts Held at the New York Public Library. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1934, no. 102.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 787, no. 192.
Miner, Dorothy. "Dutch Illuminated Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery." Connoisseur Yearbook (1954-55): 75-76.
Marrow, James. "A Book of Hours from the Circle of the Master of the Berlin Passion: Notes on the Relationship between Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Illumination and Printmaking in the Rhenish Lowlands." Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 609, no. 62, pl. 46 (fol. 23v).
Marrow, James. Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative. Ars Neerlandica. Vol. 1. Kortrijk, Belgium: Van Ghemmert, 1979, p. 225, no. 8b.
Farquhar, James Douglas. "Manuscript Production and Evidence for Localizing and Dating Fifteenth-Century Books of Hours: Walters Ms. 239." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 45 (1987): 44-102, fig. 56 (fol. 116v).
Marrow, James H., Henri L. M. Defoer, Anne S. Korteweg, and Wilhelmina C.M. Wüstefeld. The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting. New York: George Braziller, 1990, pp. 188-189, no. 52.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Netherlands
Middle of the 15th century CE
book
Original Binding
Probably fifteenth-century; worn brown calf over boards, panel-stamped in blind; frame of double fillets enclosing two rectangular panel stamps, each 5.0 x 7.1 cm, of two files of three mythological beasts and grotesques, surrounded by an inscription in Gothic script (inscription illegible and beasts not identifiable because of wear to the binding); sewn on four raised bands, rebacked; post-medieval brass catch and clasp; all edges gilt
The primary language in this manuscript is Dutch; Flemish.
Late fifteenth-century ownership inscription of Margriete Rogm[arie?]: Desen boeck hoert toe (margriete rogm[arie?] wonende te bruessel int spe[..]sen hof); translated: This book belongs to Margriete rogm[arie?] who lives in the spe[..]sen hof in Brussels; inscription partially erased but partly legible under ultraviolet light
Rev. W. J. Loftie
Leon Gruel, no. 1164
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel prior to 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters bequest
Netherlands
Middle of the 15th century CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Dutch; Flemish.
Late fifteenth-century ownership inscription of Margriete Rogm[arie?]: Desen boeck hoert toe (margriete rogm[arie?] wonende te bruessel int spe[..]sen hof); translated: This book belongs to Margriete rogm[arie?] who lives in the spe[..]sen hof in Brussels; inscription partially erased but partly legible under ultraviolet light
Rev. W. J. Loftie
Leon Gruel, no. 1164
Henry Walters, Baltimore, acquired from Gruel prior to 1931
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters bequest
This mid-fifteenth-century illuminated Book of Hours is written entirely in Dutch on fine parchment and is remarkable for its eighteen grisaille miniatures. This technique, wherein the figures are modeled primarily in a gray wash, became a favorite in the Netherlands. The hand behind the miniatures in this manuscript has been identified with a group of artists known as the Masters of the Delft Grisailles. The manuscript has been grouped with more than a dozen related works, including New York, Morgan Ms. M.349; London, Victoria and Albert Geo. Reid Ms. 32; Leiden, BPL Ms. 224; Brussels, BR Ms. 21696; Antwerp, Plantin Moretus Ms. 49; and The Hague, KB Ms. 74 G 35. The manuscript is comprised of 152 folios and is almost completely intact, lacking only two miniatures. It retains its original brown leather binding decorated with mythological beasts and a now illegible inscription. The calendar is for the Use of Utrecht, which helps localize its original ownership, as might a mostly erased ownership inscription that has been partially recovered. Good impressions of two circular pilgrim badges, now removed, are visible on fol. 112v.
Written in Gothic bookhand; one hand responsible for the majority of text; a different, less professional hand responsible for added prayers in the same script on fols. 114v-115v and 128v-130r
artist: Masters of the Delft Grisailles
Principal cataloger: Marrow, James
Cataloger: Devine, Alex
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Editor: Noel, William
Copy editor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Bockrath, Diane
Contributor: Dutschke, Consuelo
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Valle, Chiara
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Cockerell, Sydney Carlye. Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts. London: Burlington Fine Arts Club, 1908, no. 243, pl. 149.
Byvanck, Alexander Willem, and Godefridus Johannes Hoogewerf. La miniature hollandaise dans les manuscrits des 14e, 15e et 16e siècles. The Hague: Nijhoff, 1922-26, p. 24, no. 45, pl. 13.
Da Costa Greene, Belle, and Meta P. Harrsen. The Pierpont Morgan Library, Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts Held at the New York Public Library. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 1934, no. 102.
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p. 787, no. 192.
Miner, Dorothy. "Dutch Illuminated Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery." Connoisseur Yearbook (1954-55): 75-76.
Marrow, James. "A Book of Hours from the Circle of the Master of the Berlin Passion: Notes on the Relationship between Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Illumination and Printmaking in the Rhenish Lowlands." Art Bulletin 60 (1978): 609, no. 62, pl. 46 (fol. 23v).
Marrow, James. Passion Iconography in Northern European Art of the Late Middle Ages and Early Renaissance: A Study of the Transformation of Sacred Metaphor into Descriptive Narrative. Ars Neerlandica. Vol. 1. Kortrijk, Belgium: Van Ghemmert, 1979, p. 225, no. 8b.
Farquhar, James Douglas. "Manuscript Production and Evidence for Localizing and Dating Fifteenth-Century Books of Hours: Walters Ms. 239." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 45 (1987): 44-102, fig. 56 (fol. 116v).
Marrow, James H., Henri L. M. Defoer, Anne S. Korteweg, and Wilhelmina C.M. Wüstefeld. The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting. New York: George Braziller, 1990, pp. 188-189, no. 52.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Clear All