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Acquired with financial support from various foundations from antiquarian bookseller Jörn Günther, Hamburg
Acquisition 2007
Date 1453
Size 16 x 12 cm.
Signature 79 K 11
This manuscript is an illuminated Dutch Psalter-Hours, a manuscript containing the 150 Psalms, alongside a full Book of Hours, and is written in the vernacular. The manuscript is highly interesting not only for its textual content, but also for its visual contents-gorgeous full-page miniatures, painted initials, and sensitive and often humorous penwork. Above all it contains a number of the best examples of painting made by different masters. The illustration at the beginning of the Psalter shows a full-page miniature depicting the young David killing Goliath. In the background, David returns to the city, dragging the giant's head behind him on a rope.
The manuscript contains a calendar with saints' names for each day of the year, which can be used to determine the origin of the manuscript.
The most important feast days are written in red ink, including 'Sinte bave confessoir' (St Bavo, confessor) on 1 October; Bavo is the patron of the main church in Haarlem. After the calendar there are a few computational tables for calculating the day of Easter, which run from 1453 to 1550. One can therefore assume that the manuscript was made in 1453.
The Bout family who commissioned the manuscript lived in Amsterdam. They ordered the manuscript in Haarlem, which was the most important city for art in North Holland. The Masters of the Haarlem Bible, whose eponymous work is still kept in Haarlem, painted the creative and fanciful historiated initials, as well as one of the miniatures. The other artists who supplied miniatures for the Psalter-Hours worked in Utrecht.
(KR)
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