A Book of Hours

Provenance

The lettering on the covers refers to the Pelée de Valencourt and the
Chaperon families as former owners, entries of ownership starting 1646

Description / Expertise

The illumination of the book of hours, with a large number of miniatures and elaborate border decoration, is of excellent painterly quality and has been preserved in extraordinarily fresh condition and literally without traces of use. The full-page miniatures correspond to the layout of the facing text pages in a harmonious way, yet they cover a larger area of the leaf, fully utilising the space. Thus text and picture pages complement each other.
Together with the gold initial openings, they create this well-composed, lavishly illuminated manuscript, that can be attributed to the circle of Jean Pichore.