This Week: Small Comfort to a Young Queen
THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Holland Cotter
NEW YORK---In 16th-century Europe, smaller was considered better — more beautiful, more precious — when it came to hand-illustrated books. A high value indeed must have been attached to a 2 ¾-by-2-inch prayer book created around 1517 for Claude de France, the first wife of the King François I. The book, made on commission from a young queen at her coronation by an artist now anonymous, is the centerpiece of “Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France” at the Morgan Library & Museum. (Through Sept. 14, 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street, 212-685-0008, themorgan.org.) [link]
By Holland Cotter
Illustrations in the prayer book of the 16th-century Claude de France. |
Comments
“Miracles in Miniature: The Art of the Master of Claude de France” conveys a powerful sense of Renaissance religiosity as encapsulated in the exquisite manuscript illuminations by a recently discovered artist working in the royal courts of Brittany and the Loire Valley in the early 16th century.