Leaf from a Book of Hours: Saint James the Greater

The illuminator of this leaf is one of a group of painters and workshops collectively known as the "Masters of the Gold Scrolls," named after the gold tendrils that frequently, but not always, occupy the backgrounds of the group’s compositions. The present miniature is by one of the Gold Scrolls’ finest hands. From the 1440s onward, the gold scroll motif begins to disappear in their miniatures and replaced, as here, by landscape. Saint James the Greater is shown as a Christian pilgrim. The miniature would have appeared in the Suffrages of the book of hours.