Art Institute of Chicago

The Visitation, from a Book of Hours

Workshop of the Master of the Ghent Privileges

Date

c. 1440-1445

Medium

Manuscript with 230 folios, 12 full-page miniatures and other decorations in gold leaf, tempera and colored inks, and littera textualis inscriptions in Latin and French in dark black ink, ruled in red with red rubrics, on parchment, with two parchment fly leaves upper cover, three parchment fly leaves lower cover, sheets with gilded edges, in modern binding of brown morocco leather over wooden boards

Culture

Flanders

Department

Prints and Drawings

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

Books of Hours were the most popular book of the Middle Ages and Renaissance; more of them were produced from c. 1250–1550 than any other type of book, devotional or otherwise. This example has been attributed to the workshop of the prolific Master of the Ghent Privileges, and characteristically ornaments a sequence of prayers and devotional reading to be recited at precisely set times of the day and night. Images such as this tender scene of the encounter between the Virgin and her cousin Saint Elizabeth, both miraculously with child, helped introduce the different segments of the Hours of the Virgin, the core section of all Books of Hours.

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