The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux, Queen of France

Jean Pucelle

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

At first glance, this tiny prayer book, with not a trace of gold, might seem an unlikely possession for a queen of France. But it is a work of exceptional artistry: the figures are rendered in delicate grisaille (shades of gray), giving them an amazingly sculptural quality, and are accented with rich color and touches of lilac and turquoise. The 209 folios include twenty-five full-page paintings with paired images from the Infancy and Passion of Christ and scenes of the life of Saint Louis, the queen’s ancestor. In the margins, close to 700 illustrations depict the bishops, beggars, street dancers, maidens, and musicians that peopled the streets of medieval Paris, as well as apes, rabbits, dogs, and creatures of sheer fantasy. The testament of Jeanne d’Evreux identifies this prayer book, left to King Charles V, as the one "that Pucelle illuminated." At Charles’s death, the book entered the collection of another famous bibliophile, his brother Jean, duc de Berry, patron of The Cloisters’ Belles Heures.

Medieval Art and The Cloisters

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The Museum's collection of medieval and Byzantine art is among the most comprehensive in the world. Displayed in both The Met Fifth Avenue and in the Museum's branch in northern Manhattan, The Met Cloisters, the collection encompasses the art of the Mediterranean and Europe from the fall of Rome in the fourth century to the beginning of the Renaissance in the early sixteenth century. It also includes pre-medieval European works of art created during the Bronze Age and early Iron Age.

Metropolitan Museum of Art