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This manuscript was illuminated by a circle of at least five highly organized manuscript painters active in the Flemish cities of Ghent and Bruges. The principal illuminator was Alexander Bening, who painted the majority of the book's miniatures. Manuscripts produced by this circle of artists are renowned for the decoration of their borders, which typically feature a rich variety of realistically-painted flowers, birds, and butterflies. This prayer book, called a book of hours, was intended not for a cleric, but for the private devotions of a lay person-in this case, Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain (1451-1504). Isabella's coat of arms embellishes the book's frontispiece. It is unlikely that the book was commissioned by the Queen herself; rather, she probably received it as a diplomatic gift from someone courting her patronage, perhaps Cardinal Francisco Jimenez de Cisneros. A Franciscan friar, Jimenez was dependent upon Isabella for his advancement, first to the post of Queen's confessor in 1492, and then to Archbishop of Toledo in 1495.
Flanders, Ghent and Bruges, late 15th century
ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
Codex: 22.5 x 15.2 cm (8 7/8 x 6 in.)
Leonard C. Hanna, Jr. Fund
In 486 BC, Xerxes succeeded Darius I as king of Persia. His empire, then the world’s largest and most powerful, encompassed an area from Libya to western India and from Ethiopia to Afghanistan. This relief fragment of one of his guards probably comes from the west stairway of his enormous palace at Persepolis. As chronicled by Herodotus, the Greeks defeated Xerxes in a clash of conflicting political systems: democracy and monarchy.
Iran, Achaemenid (550–330 BCE), Persepolis
gray limestone
Overall: 53 x 43.6 cm (20 7/8 x 17 3/16 in.)
Did you know...
This relief was probably once brightly painted.
Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund