The Kansas University Hours of the Virgin

Abstract

A Book of Hours in the Special Collections Department at the University of Kansas has been dated circa 1445, from the region of Langres. The manuscript, which is specifically an ''Hours of the Virgin," has been attributed to the workshop of the so-called Master of the Duke of Bedford. This group of miniaturists, active as late as the middle of the fifteenth-century in France, adhered to the stylistic traditions of this Bedford Master, who was so-named after two major works which he executed for John of Lancaster, Duke of Bedford and Regent of France (1422-1435). The purpose of this study is to establish a general attribution for these Kansas University miniatures and to place then in their proper historical setting.