Leaf from a Book of Hours (recto and verso)

Manuscript books could be purchased from a given workshop in various levels of quality. The colorful leaf seen here shows an ingenious method of producing a pleasing book using artists of middling skill. By breaking the border down into small sections, the master could have an assistant copy relatively simple units of decoration in ever varying combinations. It is also interesting to note that the artist probably copied the tiny picture of the praying figures from another manuscript and since it was not designed as an initial, he crammed the D into the upper right corner.