Simon Vostre
French, flourished 1486-1518
Book of Hours, Use of Paris
INV-5331
Simon Vostre
French, flourished 1486-15181508
Book of Hours, Use of Paris
Simon Vostre French, flourished 1486-1518 →bookprints and drawing
Date
1508
Medium
Woodcut, metalcut, and letterpress in black with brush and gouache, and pen and ink on vellum (discolored at edges), in eighteenth-century full red goatskin, sewn on raised bands, with Cambridge-style gold tooling, rolled edges in gold, gold stamped spine decoration, hand-sewn silk headbands, and marbled endsheets
Dimensions
22.6 × 30 cm (8 15/16 × 11 13/16 in.)
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Location
Chicago, IL
Credit
Clarence Buckingham Collection
Books of hours printed on vellum capitalized on the desirability of more expensive illuminated manuscripts. The coloring of this example is limited to blue and red in the initials, while its full-page woodcuts, such as this Nativity, help organize the book’s religious content, including the devotional calendar. Simon Vostre reprinted the metalcut borders from his earlier printed books of hours opposite woodcuts from Vostre’s Grandes Heures, now attributed to Jean Pichore. The cutting of the Pichore blocks is finely detailed, with figures and architectural motifs larger than the three-quarter-page metalcuts from the 1490s, suggesting that the clientele had new expectations of an Italianate Renaissance style.
Also notable
Works in the same vein
Visitation, from Book of Hours
Philippe Pigouchet (French, active 1488-1518) published by Simon Vostre (French, active 1486–1518)
The Martyrdom of Saint John the Evangelist (recto), and December Calendar (verso), from Book of Hours
Philippe Pigouchet (French, active 1488-1518) published by Simon Vostre (French, active 1486–1518)