Hours of Louis XII

The Hours of Louis XII (French: Livre d'heures de Louis XII) was an illuminated manuscript book of hours produced by Jean Bourdichon for Louis XII of France. It was begun in 1498 or 1499, going by the king's age of 36 given below his portrait; he became king on 7 April 1498.^[1] The book reached England, where it was broken up around 1700. Now only parts of it survive – in total sixteen full-page miniature paintings (four are calendar pages), two sheets of text and fifty-one sheets of text bound in the wrong order as a thin volume (the last in the British Library since 1757).^[2]

The pages with miniatures are now in the Getty Museum (3), the Free Library of Philadelphia (4 calendar pages), British Library (3, plus most text pages), and with one each: National Library of Scotland, Musée Marmottan Paris, Bristol City Museum and Art Gallery, Victoria and Albert Museum, Louvre Museum and a private collection in London.^[3] All but one of these were reunited for an exhibition in 2005–2006 at the Getty Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.^[4]

Janet Backhouse, of the British Library, first proposed in 1973 that the three miniatures and bound text pages in the library were part of a major manuscript that had also contained four other miniatures that had only recently resurfaced. Gradually more miniatures were identified,^[5] and some purchased by the Getty Museum, Louvre, and Victoria and Albert Museum.^[6]

By comparison with other books of hours, the elements still missing and/or unidentified are probably about 13 full-page miniatures, 8 calendar pages, and numerous pages of text.^[7] Several pages have come to light in recent decades, and more may yet emerge.^[8] The Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, Louis's queen, also illuminated by Jean Bourdichon, provide a comparison, although this is slightly later, from between 1503 and 1508, and on an even more grand scale.^[9]