__NOTOC__ Black books of hours are a type of luxury

Flemish Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...

books of hours The book of hours is a Christian devotional book used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript ...

using pages of

vellum Vellum is prepared animal skin or membrane, typically used as writing material. Parchment is another term for this material, from which vellum is sometimes distinguished, when it is made from calfskin, as opposed to that made from other anima ...

that were soaked with black dye or ink before they were lettered or illustrated, for an unusual and dramatic effect. The text is usually written with gold or silver ink. There are seven surviving examples, all dating from about 1455–1480. The parchment was soaked in an iron-copper solution and as a result could only be inscribed with gold or silver lettering. The process was both expensive and corrosive to parchment, so surviving examples are few and generally in poor condition. These manuscripts were produced in the mid- to late-15th century for high-ranking members of the court of Philip the Good and

Charles the Bold Charles I (Charles Martin; german: Karl Martin; nl, Karel Maarten; 10 November 1433 – 5 January 1477), nicknamed the Bold (German: ''der Kühne''; Dutch: ''de Stoute''; french: le Téméraire), was Duke of Burgundy from 1467 to 1477. ...

. Given their novel visual appeal, they were probably prized more highly than more conventional illuminated books. The Burgundian court had a preference for dark, somber colourisation, and the extant works in this style were mostly commissioned for them. Only the wealthiest nobility could have afforded such books, and a contemporary taste for mournful colours—often reflected in the styles of the day—was reflected in the black, gold and silver of the manuscripts.Ingo, 373 Some of the miniatures in the books, notably in the Morgan library Black Hours, are linked to a follower of Willem Vrelant due to stylistic resemblance to faces from some of his known works.

Extant

The surviving manuscripts of this type include; * Black Hours, Morgan MS 493,

Morgan Library The Morgan Library & Museum, formerly the Pierpont Morgan Library, is a museum and research library in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City. It is situated at 225 Madison Avenue, between 36th Street to the south and 37th S ...

, New York * Black Hours, Hispanic Society, New York, c 1458, unfinished, now in the collection of the

Hispanic Society of America The Hispanic Society of America operates a museum and reference library for the study of the arts and cultures of Spain and Portugal and their former colonies in Latin America, the Spanish East Indies, and Portuguese India. Despite the name, i ...

in New York * Black Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza,

Austrian National Library The Austrian National Library (german: Österreichische Nationalbibliothek) is the largest library in Austria, with more than 12 million items in its various collections. The library is located in the Neue Burg Wing of the Hofburg in center of V ...

, Vienna * (some pages only)

Hours of Mary of Burgundy The Hours of Mary of Burgundy (german: Stundenbuch der Maria von Burgund)Inglis, I is a book of hours, a form of devotional book for lay-people, completed in Flanders around 1477, and now in the National Library of Austria. It was probably com ...

,Harthan, 108 Austrian National Library

Gallery

File:Horae beatae marie secundum usum curie romane.png, Black Hours, Hispanic Society, New York, c 1458 File:Sforza Black hours - ÖNB Cod1856 f32verso-33recto.jpg, Black Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza; f32v, 33r. ''The Evangelists and John Gospels'' file:Libro d'ore di maria di borgogna 03.jpg, Folios from the "

", c 1477

References

Notes

Sources

* ''Facsimile Ausgabe von Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, M. 493''. Luzern: Faksimile Verlag Luzern, 2001 * Bousmanne, Bernard (ed). ''Black Book of Hours; Scientific commentary''. New York: Pierpont Morgan Library, 2001 * De Schryver, Antoine. ''The Prayer Book of Charles the Bold''. CF: Getty Publications, 2008. * Harthan, John. ''Book of Hours'', Random House, 2008. * Ulrike Jenni und Dagmar Thoss, ''Das Schwartze Gebetbuch. Codex 1856 der Österreichische Nationalbibliothek in Wien'' (Faksimile), Frankfurt am Main, Insel-Verlag, 1982 * Walther, Ingo. ''Codices Illustres''. Berlin: Taschen Verlag, 2001. {{refend