University of Pittsburgh

Frick Fine Arts Library

Book of Hours

Decoration

By the fifteenth century many artists used a standard formula for the decoration in Books of Hours. In addition to the traditional miniatures opening each section of the book (e.g. a portrait of David prefacing the Seven Penitential Psalms) and the images decorating the calendar pages (labors of the month and the signs of the Zodiac), text pages were filled with brightly colored letters, line endings and borders. Frequently the artist inserted fantastic, natural, or geometric figures into the borders already filled with naturalistic, identifiable fruits and flowers. Below are several examples of the variety of decoration found in the Frick Book of Hours.

Full-page miniatures open each new section in the Book of Hours, acting as book-marks helping the person using the book find a particular Office or prayer as well as functioning as a device for meditation or reflection.  In the Frick Book of Hours, before the Hours of the Cross on folio 135v we see a miniature of the Crucifixion, set within a wide border containing five scenes from the Passion including the Betrayal, Christ before Pilate, the Flagellation, Christ carrying the cross, and the dividing of Christ's robe.  The scenes of Christ's suffering and death serve as a prompt to the reader to pray about or meditate on the Passion.  Look at the different sections on the home page, and you will see other full-page miniatures from the Frick Book of Hours.
 
 

f. 135v

Calendar page miniatures show either the relevant sign of the zodiac or a typical activity carried out in that month. These activities were generally pastoral or agricultural, showing scenes of planting, harvest, or the hunt. Below we see the page for September with the grape harvest on folio 9 recto, and on the verso, Libra holding the scales of justice.  The recto is the front of the page, the verso, the back of the page, here shown side by side.  The small paintings are set within a border decoration of foliage, blossoms and colorful scrolling vines. The names of the saints in the calendar are written in gold, red and blue ink, the different colors an indication of a major feast (gold), a martyr (red), other saints (blue). The month opens with a large decorated KL for Kalendswith the beginning of each week marked with a decorated initial. The use of gold, red, blue and white for initials is consistent throughout the manuscript.
 

f. 9

f. 9v

Each page of text in the manuscript has its own decoration including, line fillers and decorated initials. In the margin on the edge of the page is an elaborate border. The border decoration largely consists of flora  e.g. vines, flowers, berries, sometimes set within a geometric design.  The decoration is very colorful and full of detail sometimes naturalistic in appearance, sometimes more stiff and formulaic.
 
 

f. 130

f. 152

f. 151

Copyright:  Images, Frick Fine Arts Library, University of Pittsburgh; Text, Susan Blackman and Judith Golden.  Created by Judith Golden. Questions or comments may be addressed to Judith Golden at jkgst7+@pitt.edu
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