Seventeenth-Century Book of Hours

[Office of the Virgin].
Officium Beatae Mariae.
[Austria? 1630s?]
Illustrated manuscript on vellum. (BRMS 168)

A luxurious example of an early modern manuscript Book of Hours, this volume is illustrated with twelve highly accomplished pen-and-ink drawings of scenes from the Passion and the Life of the Virgin. Employing handsome calligraphy without corrections or insertions, the text includes three forms of the Office of the Virgin, the Office of the Dead, Office of the Cross, Office of the Holy Spirit, and prayers for before and after Communion. The remarkable illustrations, employing fine brushwork and gradations of light, were possibly based on a suite of Flemish or Dutch prints still to be identified.