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Medieval Art
All artworks
Period
Gothic
Date
ca. 1324–28
Collection
The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Object no.
470309

The Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux, Queen of France

Jean Pucelle, ca. 1324–28

Opening of a tiny prayer book with facing grisaille miniatures of the Betrayal of Christ and the Annunciation, with figures in the margins

The Metropolitan Museum of Art · The Cloisters Collection, 1954 · Public domain

The record

Maker
Jean Pucelle
Date
ca. 1324–28
Medium
Grisaille, tempera, and ink on vellum
Dimensions
9.2 × 6.2 cm (single folio)
Period
Gothic

Why it matters

A prayer book small enough to sit in the palm, painted almost entirely in grisaille with touches of colour. Its 209 folios include twenty-five full-page paintings pairing the Infancy and Passion of Christ with scenes from the life of Saint Louis, and hundreds of marginal figures. The queen’s testament names it as the book “that Pucelle illuminated”, a rare case of a medieval illuminator being identified by his patron.

The Met collection record Explore Jean Pucelle