Hours of the Virgin
Texts and Images
A frontispiece showing the Annunciation with the patrons introduces the Hours of the Virgin.
The text of Matins, the first of the 8 Hours recited daily at the canonical times for prayer, opens with a large historiated initial D of the Virgin and Child with a full border. The patrons are depicted in the border alongside birds, animals and heraldic shields. Remaining text divisions are marked by ornamental initials.
Annunciation with John de Pabenham and Joan Clifford kneeling in the lower margin (Hours of the Virgin)
Underdrawing for the draperies is visible in the infrared image, as well as through the semi-transparent paint used in the Virgin’s pink mantle. This garment was painted with a mixture of an insect-based red dye, lead white and gypsum (hotspot 1), while Gabriel’s dark pink tunic contains a red dye mixed with chalk (hotspot 2). Gabriel’s blue-grey wings contain azurite blue and small quantities of an organic red, as can be seen under magnification (hotspot 4). The tooled gold leaf in the background was additionally decorated by painting a pattern of spirals with an arsenic sulphide yellow pigment, likely orpiment (hotspot 5).