The Hours of Philip the Bold

Physical Description

Description and Contents

Parchment, i modern parchment flyleaf + 275 fols. + i modern parchment flyleaf, 250 x 180 mm (163 x 105 mm), 24 long lines, ruled in brown ink (original campaign) or red ink (some 15th-century additions), offsets of some 25 devotional badges once attached to margins on fols. 226r-228r, 236v-252r, 262v-263v, leaves excised between fols. 69-70, 78-79, 105-106, 152-153, 243-244, 250-251, 252-253, 265-266. The main text is written in iron-gall ink and the rubrics in vermilion red. The Calendar text is written in gold and four colours: iron-gall ink, blue (likely ultramarine), orange-red (probably vermilion) and an organic dark red.

This 15th-century miniature was painted by Dreux Jean, Philip the Bold’s valet de chambre and illuminator, who was entrusted by the Duke with numerous additions to the Grandes Heures as well as its rebinding in two volumes in 1451. The blue canopy above St Remigius and the frame display Philip the Bold’s devices: the double ‘e’ monogram and the golden fusils and flints of the Order of the Golden Fleece.