Hours of Charles the Noble, King of Navarre (1361-1425) (c. 1404): Art, History and Details

Hours of Charles the Noble, King of Navarre (1361-1425) (c. 1404) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Master of the Brussels Initials and Associates (French).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Creating a book of hours was an arduous and costly process. These books were made from vellum, animal skins that were laboriously prepared in a multistep process. The texts were written with a quill pen and the illustrations were hand painted using water-based pigments. Gold was added for a look of great luxury. Such a book would take years to create, making these valuable objects unique.

Object facts

• Title: Hours of Charles the Noble, King of Navarre (1361-1425)
• Date: c. 1404
• Creator attribution: Master of the Brussels Initials and Associates (French)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Bound Volume
• Technique: ink, tempera, and gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Codex: 20.3 x 15.7 x 7 cm (8 x 6 3/16 x 2 3/4 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 1964.40

A detail from the museum

King Charles the Noble likely used this book of hours at his royal castle of Olite in Navarra in northern Spain.

Collection credit

Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund

Further reading listed by the museum

• Meiss, Millard. “The Exhibition of French Manuscripts of the XIII-XVI Centauries at the Bibliotheque Nationale.” Art Bulletin XXXVIII (September 1956)
• Porcher, Jean. French miniatures from illuminated manuscripts. London: Collins, 1960.
• Walters Art Gallery (Baltimore, Md.). The International Style: The Arts in Europe Around 1400; [Exhibition]: October 23-December 2, 1962. 1962.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.