The Hours of James IV of Scotland, Prayer book of James IV and Queen Margaret (or variants) is an illuminated

book 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 manuscrip ...

, produced in 1503 or later, probably in

Ghent Ghent ( nl, Gent ; french: Gand ; traditional English: Gaunt) is a city and a municipality in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is the capital and largest city of the East Flanders province, and the third largest in the country, exceeded in ...

. It marks a highpoint of the late 15th century

Ghent-Bruges school The Ghent-Bruges School is a manner or movement of manuscript illumination from about 1475 to about 1550 that developed in southern Netherlands, now Belgium. The term was first used in 1891 by Joseph Destree, author of ''Recherches sur les elumin ...

of illumination and is now in the Austrian National Library in

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

(Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis 1897). It is thought to have been a wedding gift from

James IV of Scotland James IV (17 March 1473 – 9 September 1513) was King of Scotland from 11 June 1488 until his death at the Battle of Flodden in 1513. He inherited the throne at the age of fifteen on the death of his father, James III, at the Battle of Sauchi ...

or another Scottish nobleman to James's wife Margaret Tudor on the occasion of their marriage, perhaps finishing a book already started for another purpose. A number of artists worked on the extensive programme of decoration, so that "the manuscript in its entirety presents a rather odd picture of heterogeneity". The best known miniature, a full-page portrait of James at prayer before an altar with an

altarpiece An altarpiece is an artwork such as a painting, sculpture or relief representing a religious subject made for placing at the back of or behind the altar of a Christian church. Though most commonly used for a single work of art such as a painting o ...

of Christ and an

altar frontal An ''antependium'' (from Latin ''ante-'' and ''pendēre'' "to hang before"; pl: ''antependia''), also known as a ''parament'' or ''hanging'', or, when speaking specifically of the hanging for the altar, an altar frontal (Latin: ''pallium altaris ...

with James's coat-of-arms, gave his name to the

Master of James IV of Scotland __NOTOC__ The Master of James IV of Scotland (''fl.'' ca. 1485 – ca. 1526) was a Flemish manuscript illuminator and painter most likely based in Ghent, or perhaps Bruges. Circumstantial evidence, including several larger panel paintings, i ...

, who is now generally identified as

Gerard Horenbout Gerard Horenbout (c. 1465–c. 1541) was a Flemish miniaturist, a late example of the miniature tradition in Early Netherlandish painting. He is "likely and widely accepted" to be the Master of James IV of Scotland. Biography Horenbout lived a ...

, court painter to Margaret of Austria; he did only one other miniature in the book. The equivalent image of Margaret is the only image by another artist, using a rather generic face for the queen's portrait, and in a similar style to that of the Master of the First Prayer Book of Maximilian. Other artists worked on the other miniatures, which include an unusual series of unpopulated landscapes in the calendar – perhaps the Flemish artists were not sure how Scots should be dressed. Drawings had evidently been sent to Flanders of James' portrait and the heraldry of the couple, but perhaps not of Margaret. Probably drawings were sent of the panel portraits in

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...

James III of Scotland James III (10 July 1451/May 1452 – 11 June 1488) was King of Scots from 1460 until his death at the Battle of Sauchieburn in 1488. He inherited the throne as a child following the death of his father, King James II, at the siege of Roxburgh Ca ...

and his queen Margaret of Denmark by Hugo van der Goes, since the portrait miniatures show similar

iconography Iconography, as a branch of art history, studies the identification, description and interpretation of the content of images: the subjects depicted, the particular compositions and details used to do so, and other elements that are distinct fro ...

. After she was widowed, Margaret gave the book to her sister Mary Tudor, Queen of France, inscribing it (on f. 188): "Madame I pray your grace / Remember on me when ye / loke upon this bok / Your lofing syster / Margaret". By the time of

Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I (Leopold Ignaz Joseph Balthasar Franz Felician; hu, I. Lipót; 9 June 1640 – 5 May 1705) was Holy Roman Emperor, King of Hungary, Croatia, and Bohemia. The second son of Ferdinand III, Holy Roman Emperor, by his first wife, Maria An ...

in the late 17th century it had entered the library of the

Austrian Habsburgs The term Habsburg Austria may refer to the lands ruled by the Austrian branch of the Habsburgs, or the historical Austria. Depending on the context, it may be defined as: * The Duchy of Austria, after 1453 the Archduchy of Austria * The ''Erbland ...

in Vienna. It was exhibited in London and Malibu in 2003–2004.

The manuscript consists of ii + 248 + ii folios of 20 x 14 cm. The text is a single column of 20 lines per page, in bastarda script, by a known scribe (The "Thin Descender Scribe"). The illumination is of uneven quality, by many hands, consisting in total of 19 full-page and 46 small miniatures, as well as 14 half-page miniatures of landscapes (but with no attempt to show the changing seasons) in the calendar. There are two historiated initials and nine historiated borders, and decorated borders to every text page. The heraldry of the couple appears in several places, including a full page devoted to James's arms.Morrison, 373

Notes

References

*Morrison, Elizabeth, in T Kren & S McKendrick (eds), ''Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe'', Getty Museum/Royal Academy of Arts, 2003,

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