Biography

Illuminator or workshop of illuminators and painters active in France. The name was first proposed in 1914 for the artist responsible for illuminating a Breviary and a Book of Hours for John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford, English Regent in France from 1422 to 1435. The Book of Hours (London, British Library) with portraits of the Duke and his wife, Anne of Burgundy, who were married in 1423, was presented to King Henry VI of England in 1430. The unfinished Bedford or, from its liturgical use, Salisbury Breviary (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale) was begun c. 1424 (the start of the tables for computing Easter) and was still in progress in 1433, the year of the Duke's marriage to Jacquetta of Luxembourg, whose arms appear in the manuscript. These and a third manuscript, wrongly identified as a Pontifical (destroyed 1871 but published in the mid-19th century), are all richly illuminated in a similar style and all bear or bore the Duke's arms, badges and mottoes.