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 pocket-sized Book of Hours, ca. 1460-70, was completed in the circle of Willem Vrelant for the use of Sarum. Featuring twenty-seven extant miniatures and twenty-two historiated initials, it is an important example of the prayer books made in the third quarter of the thirteenth century in Bruges for English owners. While this manuscript is not especially unique amongst its peers, it is exemplary because of its impressive pictorial program, including the aforementioned miniatures and historiated initials. The miniatures include decorative details distinctive of the tradition of the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, which was influential in this period. Also notable is the sensitivity to atmospheric landscape effects imbued with spatial and coloristic qualities reminiscent of manuscripts in the Eyckian tradition. Full-page Passion scenes paired with smaller Infancy episodes in the Hours of the Virgin are juxtaposed, resulting in a rare dualism that speaks to the ambitious artistic program exhibited in this manuscript.
Textura
artist: Vrelant, Willem, -1481
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Cataloger: Herbold, Rebekah
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Copy editor: Wallace, Susan
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Herbold, Rebekah
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Schuele, Allyson
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Valle, Chiara
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Owens, M. B. "Musical Subjects in the Illumination of Books of Hours from Fifteenth-Century France and Flanders." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1987; p. 402.
De Ricci, Seymour, and W. J. Wilson. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935; p. 792, cat. no. 224.
Smeyers, Maurits. "A Mid-Fifteenth Century Book of Hours from Bruges in the Walters Art Gallery (MS. 721) and Its Relation to the Turin-Milan Hours." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 46 (1988): 55-76; p. 74.
Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 3, Belgium, 1250-1530. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1997; pp. 282-289, cat. no. 256.
Sandler, Lucy Freeman. "Hours of the Virgin and Short Office of the Cross." In Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the New York Public Library." Edited by Jonathan J.G. Alexander, James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sadler. New York: New York Public Library, 2005; p. 240 (n. 1), cat. no. 49.
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.
Bruges, Flanders
Ca. 1460-70 CE
book
Non-original Binding
Rebound in the late nineteenth-early twentieth century by Léon Gruel in Paris; crimson velvet with worn nap; sewn on three recessed cords; spine rounded and backed; edges regilded with traces of gauffering
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Made in Bruges, ca. 1460-70, for the use of Sarum; many English saints in calendar
Modern ownership notation on front pastedown: number "4" in blue crayon followed by "I.III.16" written in pencil
Léon Gruel, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century, Gruel and Engelmann bookplate on front pastedown inscribed "N. 935"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, between 1895 and 1931, by purchase from Gruel
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Bruges, Flanders
Ca. 1460-70 CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is Latin.
Made in Bruges, ca. 1460-70, for the use of Sarum; many English saints in calendar
Modern ownership notation on front pastedown: number "4" in blue crayon followed by "I.III.16" written in pencil
Léon Gruel, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century, Gruel and Engelmann bookplate on front pastedown inscribed "N. 935"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, between 1895 and 1931, by purchase from Gruel
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
This pocket-sized Book of Hours, ca. 1460-70, was completed in the circle of Willem Vrelant for the use of Sarum. Featuring twenty-seven extant miniatures and twenty-two historiated initials, it is an important example of the prayer books made in the third quarter of the thirteenth century in Bruges for English owners. While this manuscript is not especially unique amongst its peers, it is exemplary because of its impressive pictorial program, including the aforementioned miniatures and historiated initials. The miniatures include decorative details distinctive of the tradition of the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, which was influential in this period. Also notable is the sensitivity to atmospheric landscape effects imbued with spatial and coloristic qualities reminiscent of manuscripts in the Eyckian tradition. Full-page Passion scenes paired with smaller Infancy episodes in the Hours of the Virgin are juxtaposed, resulting in a rare dualism that speaks to the ambitious artistic program exhibited in this manuscript.
Textura
artist: Vrelant, Willem, -1481
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Cataloger: Herbold, Rebekah
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Copy editor: Wallace, Susan
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Herbold, Rebekah
Contributor: Noel, William
Contributor: Schuele, Allyson
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Toth, Michael B.
Contributor: Valle, Chiara
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Owen, Linda
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
Owens, M. B. "Musical Subjects in the Illumination of Books of Hours from Fifteenth-Century France and Flanders." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1987; p. 402.
De Ricci, Seymour, and W. J. Wilson. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935; p. 792, cat. no. 224.
Smeyers, Maurits. "A Mid-Fifteenth Century Book of Hours from Bruges in the Walters Art Gallery (MS. 721) and Its Relation to the Turin-Milan Hours." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 46 (1988): 55-76; p. 74.
Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 3, Belgium, 1250-1530. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press in association with the Walters Art Gallery, 1997; pp. 282-289, cat. no. 256.
Sandler, Lucy Freeman. "Hours of the Virgin and Short Office of the Cross." In Splendor of the Word: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at the New York Public Library." Edited by Jonathan J.G. Alexander, James H. Marrow, and Lucy Freeman Sadler. New York: New York Public Library, 2005; p. 240 (n. 1), cat. no. 49.
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.
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