The Ghent-Bruges school is a distinctive style of manuscript illumination which was prevalent in the Southern Netherlands (mainly present-day Belgium) from about 1475 to about 1550. [1] Though the name highlights the importance of Ghent and Bruges as centres for manuscript production, manuscripts in the style were produced in a wider area. [2]
The term was first used in 1891 by Belgian art historian Joseph Destrée, in his article Recherches sur les elumineurs flamands, and later the same year by French art historian Paul Durrieu ; later it was used by German art historian Friedrich Winkler in his overview of Flemish illuminated manuscripts from the 15th and 16th centuries. [3] Janet Backhouse has described the Ghent-Bruges school as "one of the last great styles of illumination." [4]
The style developed around the mid-1470s to the 1480s through a break with the earlier, "courtly style" of about 1440 to 1474 which is closely associated with the aristocratic book collection of the Dukes of Burgundy Philip the Good and Charles the Bold. [2] The patronage of Charles continued to play an important role, [5] but the depiction of human figures in the miniatures went from "wooden, clumsily painted stock-figures" to realistic and increasingly large representations of people, eventually developing into half- or full-length portraits. [2] Simultaneously, but probably unrelatedly, [5] the border decoration of the manuscripts developed towards greater realism and came to occupy a larger part of the page. [6] Both in the miniatures and the border decoration, artists displayed a "concern with verisimilitude" [7] and the use of shaded, pastel colors. [2]
The term has been criticised for diverting attention too much to the cities of Ghent and Bruges at a time when manuscript production often was an international or regional undertaking with craftsmen operating in many different urban centres and often collaborating on the same projects. [8]
Christopher de Hamel has on the other hand pointed out that while manuscripts produced in both cities during this time were stylistically similar, illuminators rarely moved between them and they served different markets. Book production in Ghent, at the time the administrative capital of the region, was oriented towards a domestic, Flemish market while manuscripts made in Bruges were intended mainly for international export. [9]
The Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse is a heavily illustrated deluxe illuminated manuscript in four volumes, containing a French text of Froissart's Chronicles, written and illuminated in the first half of the 1470s in Bruges, Flanders, in modern Belgium. The text of Froissart's Chronicles is preserved in more than 150 manuscript copies. This is one of the most lavishly illuminated examples, commissioned by Louis of Gruuthuse, a Flemish nobleman and bibliophile. Several leading Flemish illuminators worked on the miniatures.
Louis de Bruges, Lord of Gruuthuse, Prince of Steenhuijs, Earl of Winchester, was a Flemish courtier, bibliophile, soldier and nobleman. He was awarded the title of Earl of Winchester by King Edward IV of England in 1472, and was Stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland 1462–77.
Simon Marmion was a French and Burgundian Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts. Marmion lived and worked in what is now France but for most of his lifetime was part of the Duchy of Burgundy in the Southern Netherlands.
Lucas Horenbout, often called Hornebolte in England, was a Flemish artist who moved to England in the mid-1520s and worked there as "King's Painter" and court miniaturist to King Henry VIII from 1525 until his death. He was trained in the final phase of Netherlandish illuminated manuscript painting, in which his father Gerard was an important figure, and was the founding painter of the long and distinct English tradition of portrait miniature painting. He has been suggested as the Master of the Cast Shadow Workshop, who produced royal portraits on panel in the 1520s or 1530s.
The Master of Anthony of Burgundy was a Flemish miniature painter active in Bruges between about 1460 and 1490, apparently running a large workshop, and producing some of the most sophisticated work of the final flowering of Flemish illumination. He was first identified by Winkler in 1921; his name is derived from one of his most elevated patrons, Anthony of Burgundy, Philip the Good's illegitimate son, though he also worked for the Dukes and other bibliophiles in Burgundian court circles, who had already been allocated "Masters" by art historians. His contributions to the heavily illustrated Froissart of Louis of Gruuthuse from the early 1470s, on which several of the leading illuminators of the day worked, show him excelling some more famous names, like Loiset Lyédet. The young Master of the Dresden Prayerbook worked as his assistant on this book, suggesting he was an apprentice; a number of other anonymous masters have been postulated as his pupils. Other works are in the libraries of Paris, Wrocław, Philadelphia, Munich, Cambridge University Library and elsewhere.
The Master of James IV of Scotland was a Flemish manuscript illuminator and painter most likely based in Ghent, or perhaps Bruges. Circumstantial evidence, including several larger panel paintings, indicates that he may be identical with Gerard Horenbout. He was the leading illuminator of the penultimate generation of Flemish illuminators. The painter's name is derived from a portrait of James IV of Scotland which, together with one of his Queen Margaret Tudor, is in the Prayer book of James IV and Queen Margaret, a book of hours commissioned by James and now in Vienna. He has been called one of the finest illuminators active in Flanders around 1500, and contributed to many lavish and important books besides directing an active studio of his own.
The Turin–Milan Hours is a partially destroyed illuminated manuscript, which despite its name is not strictly a book of hours. It is of exceptional quality and importance, with a very complicated history both during and after its production. It contains several miniatures of about 1420 attributed to an artist known as "Hand G" who was probably either Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, or an artist very closely associated with them. About a decade or so later Barthélemy d'Eyck may have worked on some miniatures. Of the several portions of the book, that kept in Turin was destroyed in a fire in 1904, though black-and-white photographs exist.
The Rothschild Prayerbook or Rothschild Hours, is an important Flemish illuminated manuscript book of hours, compiled c. 1500–1520 by a number of artists.
Janet Moira Backhouse was an English manuscripts curator at the British Museum, and a leading authority in the field of illuminated manuscripts.
The Hours of James IV of Scotland, Prayer book of James IV and Queen Margaret is an illuminated book of hours, produced in 1503 or later, probably in Ghent. It marks a highpoint of the late 15th century Ghent-Bruges school of illumination and is now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna. It is thought to have been a wedding gift from James IV of Scotland 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 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.
The Hours of Mary of Burgundy 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 commissioned for Mary, the ruler of the Burgundian Netherlands and then the wealthiest woman in Europe. No records survive as to its commission. The book contains 187 folios, each measuring 225 by 150 millimetres. It consists of the Roman Liturgy of the Hours, 24 calendar roundels, 20 full-page miniatures and 16 quarter-page format illustrations. Its production began c. 1470, and includes miniatures by several artists, of which the foremost was the unidentified but influential illuminator known as the Master of Mary of Burgundy, who provides the book with its most meticulously detailed illustrations and borders. Other miniatures, considered of an older tradition, were contributed by Simon Marmion, Willem Vrelant and Lieven van Lathem. The majority of the calligraphy is attributed to Nicolas Spierinc, with whom the Master collaborated on other works and who may also have provided a number of illustrations.
The Royal manuscripts are one of the "closed collections" of the British Library, consisting of some 2,000 manuscripts collected by the sovereigns of England in the "Old Royal Library" and given to the British Museum by George II in 1757. They are still catalogued with call numbers using the prefix "Royal" in the style "Royal MS 2. B. V". As a collection, the Royal manuscripts date back to Edward IV, though many earlier manuscripts were added to the collection before it was donated. Though the collection was therefore formed entirely after the invention of printing, luxury illuminated manuscripts continued to be commissioned by royalty in England as elsewhere until well into the 16th century. The collection was expanded under Henry VIII by confiscations in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and after the falls of Henry's ministers Cardinal Wolsey and Thomas Cromwell. Many older manuscripts were presented to monarchs as gifts; perhaps the most important manuscript in the collection, the Codex Alexandrinus, was presented to Charles I in recognition of the diplomatic efforts of his father James I to help the Eastern Orthodox churches under the rule of the Ottoman Empire. The date and means of entry into the collection can only be guessed at in many if not most cases. Now the collection is closed in the sense that no new items have been added to it since it was donated to the nation.
Quentin Poulet was a Burgundian Catholic priest, known as a scribe, illuminator, and librarian, from Lille. Between 1492 and at least 1506, when he disappears from the historical record, he was the first recorded librarian of the Old Royal Library of England, and probably "an arbiter of continental taste for the English royal court".
Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good is a presentation miniature believed to have been painted by the Flemish artist Rogier van der Weyden. It decorates the frontispiece to the Chroniques de Hainaut, MS KBR.9242, Jean Wauquelin's French translation of a three-volume history of the County of Hainaut originally written in Latin by the 14th-century Franciscan historian Jacques de Guyse.
The Hours of Joanna I of Castile is a sixteenth-century illuminated codex housed in the British Library, London, under call number Add MS 35313.
The Munich-Montserrat Book of Hours is a 1535 illuminated manuscript book of hours. It measured 10 by 14 cm in its original form. It was produced by Simon Bening and his workshop, possibly for Alonso de Idiaquez, royal secretary to Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor. Its miniatures are stylistically similar to other books of hours by Bening and his workshop, such as the Da Costa Book of Hours, the Hennessy Book of Hours and the Hours of Isabella of Portugal, all produced for Spanish nobles.
The Spinola Book of Hours is a 16th-century illuminated manuscript, consisting of 310 folios with 84 fully illustrated miniature paintings. This medieval manuscript was produced in the region between Bruges and Ghent in Flanders around 1510-1520. According to Thomas Kren, a former curator of the J. Paul Getty Museum, the artwork within the Spinola Hours can be attributed to five distinct artists. Forty-seven of these illuminated pages can be accredited to the 'Master of James IV'. The Spinola Hours bears a central coat-of-arms on the cover indicating it belonged to the Spinola family of Genoa. Today it is located at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles.
The Master of Margaret of York is the Notname of an illuminator active in Bruges between 1470 and 1480. He owes his name to a devotional book he decorated for Margaret of York, wife of Charles the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. A large number of his illuminated books were executed for Louis de Gruuthuse. Several manuscripts have also been attributed to his assistants.
The Master of the Jardin de vertueuse consolation is the Notname of an illuminator active in Bruges in the years 1450 to 1475. He owes his name to a work by Pierre d'Ailly of which the decoration has been attributed to him, Le Jardin de vertueuse consolation, executed for Louis de Gruuthuse and today preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale de France as ms. fr. 1026.
The Mayer van den Bergh Breviary is a 16th-century illuminated manuscript, a breviary, currently in the collections of Museum Mayer van den Bergh in Antwerp.
