The Psalter-Hours of Isabelle of France

Evidence for the patron’s northern connections

Owners

The manuscript contains textual and visual features not found in contemporary French manuscripts.  These features include the addition of readings for feasts of the Virgin with elaborate historiated initials; the insertion of the suffrages and images of saints at Lauds, the second office in the Hours of the Virgin; and the illustration of the Hours of the Virgin with scenes from Christ’s Passion instead of the Nativity cycle common in France. These features, typical of Books of Hours made in Brabant, Hainaut and the diocese of Liège, suggest that the patron had connections with regions north of Paris.

This image illustrates the story of St Nicholas giving money to an ailing and impoverished father who feared that prostitution might be the only path left to his daughters. The monumental figures and the diapered blue and pink grounds characterise the work of Hand C.