Lodos de siembra

Many books of hours were sold bare with the expectation that the owner could add images later. As I have shown above, Northern and Southern Netherlandish book makers constructed their wares in order that textual incipits would begin on a fresh recto, so that a full-page miniature could easily be slotted in to face it. Images that accompany the major texts of the book of hours are the most common type of added leaves: the Annunciation (for the Hours of the Virgin), the Crucifixion (for the Hours of the Cross); Christ in Judgment (for the Seven Penitential Psalms); and the Mass for the Dead (for the Vigil for the Dead).6 _Image

makers did a swift trade in these subjects. They also supplied saints on single leaves, such as those discussed earlier in Cambridge, UL, Ms. Ff.6.8. Artists who supplied these kinds of images, destined for books of hours made separately, included the Masters of the Pink Canopies, the Moerdrecht Masters, the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, and in the North, the Masters of the Suffrages and the Masters of the Dark Eyes. All of these artists have received thorough studies.7 _{As one can see from this}

6 The subjects of these cycles changed regionally and over time, for which see Vanwijnsberghe, “The Cyclical Illustrations of the Little Hours of the Virgin in Pre- Eyckian Manuscripts,” and Vanwijnsberghe, “Le Cycle de l’Enfance des Petites Heures de la Vierge dans les Livres d’Heures des Pays-Bas Méridionaux.”

7 Bernard Bousmanne, “Deux Livres d’Heures du Groupe aux Rinceaux d’Or,”

list, these artists often worked in groups, where the work of individual artists fades into a singular style. These artists must have aspired to a corporate style or brand in order to make interchangeable parts that could be slotted into off-the-shelf books. Although their work was formulaic, their wares made plain manuscripts somewhat richer and more “personalized.”

Fig. 107 Christ Carrying the Cross, full-page miniature attributed to the Moerdrecht Masters, inserted into a book of hours. Tilburg, Universiteitsbibliotheek, Ms. KHS 12, fol. 39v-40r. Image © Tilburg Universiteitsbibliotheek, CC BY 4.0.

Cardon, “The Illustrations and the Gold Scrolls Workshop,” in Typologische Taferelen uit het Leven van Jezus: A Manuscript from the Gold Scrolls Group (Bruges, ca. 1440) in the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York, Ms. Morgan 649: An Edition of the Text, a Reproduction of the Manuscript, and a Study of the Miniatures, ed. Bert Cardon, R. Lievens, and Maurits Smeyers, Corpus van Verluchte Handschriften uit de Nederlanden = Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts from the Low Countries (Leuven: Peeters, 1985), pp. 119–204, have discussed the Masters of the Gold Scrolls, and their works contain references to earlier literature through which one could map the formation of this category in the twentieth century. Georges Dogaer, Flemish Miniature Painting in the 15th and 16th Centuries (Amsterdam: B. M. Israël, 1987), pp. 27–31; van Bergen, De Meesters van Otto van Moerdrecht; James Douglas Farquhar, “Identity in an Anonymous Age: Bruges Manuscript Illuminators and Their Signs,”

Viator 11 (1980), pp. 371–83; Farquhar, “Manuscript Production and Evidence for Localizing and Dating Fifteenth-Century Books of Hours: Walters Ms 239,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 45 (1987), pp. 44–88; and Melanie E. Gifford, “Pattern and Style in a Flemish Book of Hours: Walters Ms. 239,” Journal of the Walters Art Gallery

The Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht specialized in creating single-leaf miniatures to be inserted into books of hours. One such manuscript containing their added miniatures is Tilburg, UB, KHS 12 (fig. 107). It is a book of hours in Dutch, made in South Holland, and is dated 1434.8 _{Fifteenth-century wooden boards covered in blind stamped}

brown leather still bind the manuscript. This binding is probably contemporary with the addition of the full-page miniatures, which were made by the Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht in the 1430s or 1440s. An early owner of the book therefore must have added them. In

fact, the manuscript contains a fifteenth-century note of ownership of “Wendelmoed Iacobs dochter, Thomas Iacobsz. wijf, wonende inden Eynghel” (Wendelmoed the daughter of Jacob and the wife of Thomas Iacobsz, who lives in Eynghel [a town near Lisse]). It may have been she who added the miniatures.9 _{This provides yet another example of my}

general observation that people who make one kind of addition (such as adding images) are likely to add several (such as adding inscriptions). With features partway between “radishes” and “scallop,” the penwork decoration is executed in a style that can be associated with Delft.10 _{These ornaments contrast sharply, however, with the painted}

borders that the Moerdrecht masters supplied with the miniatures, so the resulting openings do not present a visually unified whole; one can clearly see the aesthetic seam where the new miniature meets the old text leaf. This book was not planned from the beginning to have miniatures, as the initials for the individual hours appear part-way down the page; according to the hierarchy of decoration, a full-page miniature should accompany an initial at the top of the page. As they stand, the images interrupt the text. For this reason the owner has had to violate the hierarchy, because there was no way to observe it given the manuscript as it stood, with its initials half-way down the page that didn’t “match” the miniature. Technically, a full-page miniature should face a text page with the largest initial, situated at the upper left corner of the right-hand page. The owner could not adjust the existing decoration,

8 Gumbert, Manuscrits Datés Conservés dans les Pays-Bas, T. 2 (Cmd-Nl 2), vol. II, p. 5, nt. 13, however, questions this date.

9 Tilburg, UB, KHS 12, fol. 262v.

10 Korteweg, Kriezels, Aubergines en Takkenbossen: Randversiering in Noordnederlandse Handschriften uit de Vijftiende Eeuw, pp. 56–67.

as the five-line initial G was already fixed on the page. Clearly, she was not satisfied with the moderate decoration of her book as received. The easiest way to rectify this was to add full-page miniatures, even if they disrupted the hierarchy. Adding value, color, and images were clearly more important to her than abiding by the rules of page layout. A vulgarian, she privileged decoration over design principles.