File:Book of Hours for Sarum Use (Mostyn Hours) (IA 1945 65 6).pdf

Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, 1945‑65‑6. England, Circa 1470. This Book of Hours was made in England (probably London) circa 1470. It is known as the Mostyn Hours after an eighteenth-century owner, and contains a calendar (fols. 1r-6v), the Hours of the Virgin (fols. 9r-116v), the Seven Penitential Psalms (fols. 118r-143v), the Gradual Psalms (fols. 145r-158r), the Office of the Dead (fols. 159r-205v), the Commendation of Souls (fols. 207r-227r), the Passion Psalms (fols. 228r-243r), and the Hours of the Passion (fols. 244r-276v) as well as various prayers and accessory texts. Unusually, the artist has painted miniatures showing scenes from the Passion of Christ at the opening of each of the Hours of the Virgin, as opposed to the more common infancy scenes. These full-page miniatures and their facing pages are framed by dense foliate borders inhabited by animals and birds. The artist has been linked with a number of other late fifteenth-century English manuscripts (and is known as Illustrator B of Fitzwilliam Museum 56 after his work on a book now in Cambridge) but is thought on stylistic grounds to have trained in Rouen. Remarkably, this lavish manuscript also retains its original leather binding stamped with images of saints.