Book of Hours

Description This book was created ca. 1460-70 CE in Bruges by the workshop of Willem Vrelant for an English patron, as suggested by the many English saints included in the calendar. The manuscript is heavily illuminated and contains thirty historiated initials, some with unusual themes, such as Christ's wounds (fols. 68r-70r) and the Murder of St. Thomas Becket (fol. 16v). There is also an unfinished historiated initial on fol. 55r. While the number of illuminations is large, their execution is fairly standard. The Hours of the Virgin cycle is expanded at Lauds with an inserted Hours of the Cross section, which results in a complex quire structure.

Exhibitions

• A Feast for the Senses: Art and Experience in Medieval Europe. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; The John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota. 2016-2017.

Provenance Acquired by Leo Olschki, Florence, before 1927; purchased by Henry Walters, Baltimore, ca. 1930; by bequest to Walters Art Museum, 1931.

Credit Acquired by Henry Walters