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The Prayer Book and the World of AD 1500. Professor Emerita Michelle P. Brown. The Rothschild Prayerbook made in Ghent / Bruges c.1500-1520
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The Prayer Book and the World of AD 1500 Professor Emerita Michelle P. Brown
The Rothschild Prayerbook made in Ghent / Bruges c.1500-1520 for an unknown patron by leading Flemish artists ‘The Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximilian’, Gerard Horenbout (‘Master of James IV of Scotland), Gerard David and Simon Bening (Kerry Stokes Collection)
The contents of the book, which has extra mass texts and prayers beyond those usually found in a book of hours, contain distinctive elements that relate it to the Chartreuse des Dunes, near Bruges. By 1500 the printed book of hours had largely replaced manuscript ones, except for luxury books like this, which were restricted to the higher nobility and royalty. The manuscript belonged to the princely Wittelsbach family in the 16th century, and then to the library of the counts palatine in Heidelberg, leaving that collection before 1623. Its history is then unknown until it reappeared in the collection of the Viennese branch of the Rothschild family in the late 19th century. It was confiscated from Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild immediately after the March 1938 German annexation of Austria and passed to the National Library of Austria until returned to the Rothschild family in 1999. It was sold by them at Christies that year for a record $13 million and again in 2014 for £8,195,783 to Australian media magnate Kerry Stokes
German Gradual 1512, illuminator Nicolaus Bertschi with his wife, Margaret
Gerard David, a leading Flemish miniaturist and panel-painter, self-portrait c.1509
Calendar by Simon Bening, The Golf Book, BL
Illuminator William de Brailes, from the de Brailes Hours, the first full book of hours, Oxford 1240s Catte St, Oxford, site of the premises of William and his wife Selina
Menorah with Hebrew micrography, The King’s Bible, Solsona, 1384. British Library, King’s 1, f. 3.
The St John’s Bible Donald Jackson, The Scriptorium, Hendre, Wales When I was a nine year old, desire led me to copy ancient scripts and decorated letters. I loved the feel of the pen as it touched the page and the breathtaking effect of coloured ink as its wetness caught the light. Those sensations, which I still experience as I work, are what seem to direct the shapes and colours of my designs and letters. The quill and the brush, not my conscious thinking, make the choice. The continual process of opening up and accepting what may reveal itself through hand and heart on a crafted page is the closest I have ever come to God.
Vincent de Beauvais, Speculum, bought in Flanders by Edward IV
Babel, from a breviary for the wealthy Venetian Grimani family, made by the same team as the Rothschild Prayerbook in Ghent / Bruges, c.1515-1520 (San Marco, Venice)
Arrest of Christ by Simon Bening, Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (Getty)
Hours of Richard III, made in London in the 1420s, which probably accompanied him to the Battle of Bosworth in 1485
Hours of Mary of Burgundy Flanders 1477
