The Annunciation (Matins, Office of the Virgin): Leaf from a Book of Hours (1 of 3 Excised Leaves) (c. 1530–35): Art, History and Details

The Annunciation (Matins, Office of the Virgin): Leaf from a Book of Hours (1 of 3 Excised Leaves) (c. 1530–35) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Noël Bellemare (French, d. 1546); The 1520s Hours Workshop (French).

The work and its context

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

Unusual in French manuscript painting of the period, fuchsia pinks and bright acid greens characterize the painting’s palette. The figures are set in the foreground of the miniature and enclosed within a "Fontainebleau"-style architectural frame. The 1520s Hours Workshop primarily produced jewel-like luxury books of hours for a wealthy clientele. Evidence points to Paris as the site of the workshop's activity under the direction of the Antwerp-born miniaturist Noël Bellemare (died 1546).

Object facts

• Title: The Annunciation (Matins, Office of the Virgin): Leaf from a Book of Hours (1 of 3 Excised Leaves)
• Date: c. 1530–35
• Creator attribution: Noël Bellemare (French, d. 1546); The 1520s Hours Workshop (French)
• Culture: France, Paris
• Type: Manuscript
• Technique: ink, tempera, and liquid gold on vellum
• Dimensions: Overall: 7.7 x 6.5 cm (3 1/16 x 2 9/16 in.)
• Collection: MED - Manuscript Illuminations
• Department: Medieval Art
• Accession number: 2001.80

A detail from the museum

Books of hours were often purchased as luxury objects in order to reflect the owner’s status, wealth, and taste.

Collection credit

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection

Further reading listed by the museum

• Orth, Myra Dickman. "French Renaissance Manuscripts: the 1520s Hours Workshop and the Master of the Getty Epistles." J. Paul Getty Museum Journal. 16 (1988).
• Ortha, Myra Dickman. "Antwerp Mannerist Model Drawings in French Renaissance Books of Hours: A Case Stufy of the 1520s Hours Workshop." Journal of the Walters Art Gallery 47 (1989).
• Richard Day Ltd. An Exhibition of European Drawings and Manuscripts, 1480-1880. London: R. Day, 1990.

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.