Jean Bourdichon (about 1457 - 1521, Tours)
Book of Hours, about 1515-1520
Ink, colors, and gold on parchment , 16.5 x 10.5 cm (6 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.)
Ink, colors, and gold on parchment , 16.5 x 10.5 cm (6 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.)
6.T.1
Jean Bourdichon (about 1457 - 1521, Tours)
Book of Hours
about 1515-1520
Book Of Hours Case
Latin
Tours
1 Vol. ( 131 + 4 leaves, 25 lines) ; parchment ; ill. : 16.5 cm (folio)
Gift of Sir Henry Englefield (1715–1780), sixth Baronet, to his second wife, Catharine Buck (1725–1805), after 1751.
Collection of William Pitt of Queen Street, Westminster, London. (possibly the British prime minister William Pitt (1759–1806))
Purchased by the antiquarian and writer on science Sir Henry Charles Englefield (1752(?)-1822), seventh Baronet, from the Pitt sale on 20 January 1808, lot 842.
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the antique dealer Consiglio Ricchetti, Venice on 12 August 1890 for 5000 lire.
Inscribed (third flyleaf): "Catherine Englefield from her beloved husband Henry Englefield"
Affixed (f. 1): Excerpt from Pitt sale [lot 842]
16.5 x 10.5 cm (6 1/2 x 4 1/8 in.)
Ink, colors, and gold on parchment
Court painter to four kings of France, Jean Bourdichon was best known for manuscript illumination of exquisite refinement and cosmopolitan sophistication. His books of hours mark the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance. Such richly decorated prayer books were favored by royalty, nobility, and the rich merchant classes who continued to prefer manuscripts to printed books as aids to their daily devotions.
The Book of Hours in the Gardner Museum has remained virtually unstudied. A late work by Bourdichon, it is characterized by ambitious Italianate frames which enclose the main illuminations. The book nonetheless remains intimate and private, the delicately colored scenes compelling close inspection.
Source: Myra Orth, "Book of Hours," in Eye of the Beholder, edited by Alan Chong et al. (Boston: ISGM and Beacon Press, 2003): 135.
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