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

. 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 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 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 or another Scottish nobleman to James's wife

Margaret Tudor Margaret Tudor (28 November 1489 – 18 October 1541) was Queen of Scotland from 1503 until 1513 by marriage to King James IV. She then served as regent of Scotland during her son's minority, and successfully fought to extend her regency. Ma ...

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 of Christ and an altar frontal with James's coat-of-arms, gave his name to the Master of James IV of Scotland, who is now generally identified as Gerard Horenbout, 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. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

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 ...

and his queen Margaret of Denmark by

Hugo van der Goes Hugo van der Goes (c. 1430/1440 – 1482) was one of the most significant and original Early Netherlandish painting, Flemish painters of the late 15th century. Van der Goes was an important painter of altarpieces as well as portraits. He introduce ...

, since the portrait miniatures show similar iconography. After she was widowed, Margaret gave the book to her sister

Mary Tudor, Queen of France Mary Tudor (; 18 March 1496 – 25 June 1533) was an English princess who was briefly Queen of France as the third wife of King Louis XII. Louis was more than 30 years her senior. Mary was the fifth child of Henry VII of England and Elizabeth ...

, 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 in the late 17th century it had entered the library of the Austrian Habsburgs 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 Bastarda (or bastard) was a blackletter script used in France, the Burgundian Netherlands and Germany during the 14th and 15th centuries. The Burgundian variant of script can be seen as the court script of the Dukes of Burgundy. The early pri ...

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 initial A historiated initial is an initial, an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, that contains a picture. Strictly speaking, a historiated initial depicts an identifiable figure or a specific scene, while an in ...

s 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,

Contents

Notes

References

Further reading