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.
Historiated initial D with the Enthroned Virgin and Child (Hours of the Virgin, Matins)
The three-dimensional modelling of the Virgin Mary’s garments, with their multiple folds, distinguishes this initial from the more linear treatment of other draperies in the manuscript and suggests that this image was painted by a different artist. The materials employed also set this initial apart. These include coarser pigment particles (hotspot 1), a darkened organic shading on the Virgin’s mantle (hotspot 2), flesh tones containing lead white but no gypsum, and the use of shell gold for the decoration painted over the gilded background (hotspot 3). The border contains some pigments not found in the miniature: an organic red, used to obtain a red hue (hotspot 4) and a yellow arsenic sulphide pigment used in the wing of a bird (hotspot 5).