Late Seventeenth-Century Prayer Book by Elisabeth Senault

Elisabeth Senault (active ca. 1690). 
Heures nouvelles dédiées à Monseigneur Dauphin.
Paris: Claude de Hansy, [ca. 1690]. (BRA 0862)

Elisabeth Senault was trained as a calligrapher and engraver by her father Louis Senault, a leading seventeenth-century French writing master. After his death circa 1680, she produced several editions of private prayer books for the French royal court. These were printed entirely with engraved plates in an attempt to reproduce by mechanical means the rich ornamentation of illuminated manuscript prayer books. The exhibited Heures nouvelles, dedicated to Louis, le grand Dauphin, twentieth Dauphin of France (1661–1711), was fashioned as an abbreviated Book of Hours with additional private prayers for various occasions, such as before and after confession.