Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
France, Paris, ca. 1420-1425
MS M.1004 fol. 47v

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Magi: Adoration -- Two of three Magi are crowned and stand, holding covered vessels in left hands. The third, kneeling, extends with right hand, vessel with cover open, toward Virgin Mary, nimbed and veiled, seated on canopied bed, with feet on cushion, holding Christ Child, cross-nimbed, nude. Rays from star in sky touch Virgin Mary. Joseph the Carpenter sits at right holding staff in right hand. They are within roofed manger of wattle and wood; ox and ass are next to trough at open end of manger, looking toward Magi. In background, within hilly landscape with trees, are three horseman, two of whom wear hats.
Margins decorated with border of foliate and floreate ornament, including rose. Within border, barbed quatrefoils, enclosing floreate and foliate ornament, birds.
Added probably after 1451, heraldic shields of France, France impaling Savoy, Savoy, Savoy with label of three points impaling France in barbed quatrefoils in corners of margins.