Book of Hours in Late Mediaeval Art and Life

Sotheby's Publications, 1988 4to (28.5 cm), 230 pp. Publisher's cloth and dust jacket. "Books of Hours are the most famous illuminated manuscripts. These enchantingly decorated books of private devotion have entranced collectors for centuries. The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life is the result of an examination by Roger Wieck, Senior Curater at the Walters Art Gallery, of a thousand manuscript Books of Hours in American and European collections. He considers who used these manuscripts in the Middle Ages, why, when and how. Chapters by Lawrence Poos, Assistant Professor of History at the Catholic University of America and Virginia Reinberg, of Boston College, place Books of Hours in the social context of daily life in the fifteenth Century. Roger Wieck investigates how the manuscripts were assembled and takes the reader through each of the various sections and components oí a Book of Hours, describing and explaining their beautiful but often enigmatic illustrations. Finally, John Plummer, foremost American liturgical and manuscript historian and formerly Curator of Manuscripts at the Pierpont Morgan Library, unveils the results of many years' work in ingeniously localising Books of Hours by the endless and subtle variations in their text. The result is the most comprehensive compendium of work on Books of Hours." (from the publisher's synopsis)