A Royal Prayer Book: Artistic Collaboration in the Psalter-Hours of Isabelle of France

Abstract

The Psalter of St Louis and the Psalter-Hours of Isabelle of France are among the most celebrated French manuscripts. Made in Paris in the 1260s, they are important witnesses to the dynastic concerns, devotional life, religious patronage and aesthetic tastes of the Capetian family as well as the accomplishments of professional manuscript makers in the half century since the book trade made its first steps in the city. The two volumes contain some of the earliest examples of a new painting technique – the illusionistic modelling of drapery evoking the tree-dimensional human body beneath – that would develop in France and England in subsequent decades and manifest itself in Italy by c.1300.