Hours of Queen Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain
Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian Associates
The original owner of this exquisite book of hours was Queen Isabella of Spain, who sponsored Christopher Columbus's exploratory voyage to the Americas. Eventually this book found its way to the New World and was acquired by the Cleveland Museum of Art in 1963.
Details
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Dimensions
- codex: height 0.235 m, width 0.173 m, depth 0.048 m
- Origin
- Flanders, Bruges and Ghent
- Department
- Medieval Art
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Art Genome Taxonomy
12 tags
Artistic Disciplines
-
Written Word Both · 99%
The image clearly shows an open codex with extensive handwritten text, and the museum classifies the object as a bound volume.
Subject Matter
-
Flora Visual · 99%
Numerous painted flowers, leaves, stems, and curling vegetal forms are distributed across the borders.
-
Animals Visual · 92%
Several butterflies are clearly visible in the border, and the miniature includes multiple animal-like or dragon-like forms.
-
Deities and Holy Figures Interpretive · 76%
The central winged figure holds a cross-like staff and appears within a Christian devotional manuscript, although the specific identity is not established by the supplied metadata.
Styles and Movements
-
Medieval Art Metadata · 99%
The Cleveland Museum of Art lists Medieval Art among the work's classifications.
Visual Qualities
-
Highly Ornamented Both · 99%
The miniature, script, initials, flowers, insects, and scrolling border ornament create a densely decorated illuminated spread.
-
Patterns Visual · 95%
Repeated floral, foliate, insect, and scrolling motifs organize the blue borders around both pages.
-
Bright and Vivid Colors Visual · 85%
The illumination uses saturated blue, pink, red, green, white, brown, and gold in strong contrast with the pale vellum and dark lettering.
Medium and Techniques
-
Manuscript Metadata · 99%
The object is a bound devotional book made with ink, tempera, and gold on vellum.
-
Gold Leaf and Gilding Both · 95%
Gold is specified in the catalog medium, and extensive gold-colored ornament is visibly applied throughout the borders and initials.
Geographic Regions
-
Flanders and Luxembourg Metadata · 96%
The recorded place of origin is Flanders, specifically Bruges and Ghent.
Materials
-
Gold Metadata · 99%
The catalog identifies gold as one of the materials used in the manuscript.
Source & rights
Master of the First Prayerbook of Maximillian (Flemish, c. 1444–1519). Hours of Queen Isabella the Catholic, Queen of Spain. Cleveland Museum of Art.