Simon Bening - The Croy Prayer Book - 1993

The Croy Prayer Book – Velvet Edition Facsimile. Fine Binding.
Published 1993 by Coron Verlag – Zurich, in a limited edition of 690. This copy is number 641. Bound in red velvet with gilded rosettes, gilded decorative clasp and all-round gilding in real gold. 366 pages, 19.5 × 13.7 cm.
With a Commentary by Otto Mazal and Dagmar Thoss (316 pages) in German and French. Both volumes are in an original acrylic cassette..
Condition: As New

The manuscript is a Prayer Book, the favorite book for use in private Christian devotions in the late Middle Ages and the early modern period. Its core text is the Hours of the Virgin, a cycle of prayers focused on the Virgin Mary to be recited daily. The Croy Prayer Book, like many contemporary prayer books, opens with a calendar.
The Croy Prayer Book, made in Bruges between 1510 and 1520, contains so many small decorative images in the margins, so-called drolleries, that it became known as the Book of Drolleries. Fantastic border decorations or vignettes depicting fabulous hybrids of humans, animals and plants are also known as grotesques. With over 200 drolleries the Croy prayer book is a unique book treasure that enchants every viewer with its magnificent illustrations, which also include 58 magnificent miniatures. This treasure trove of late medieval illumination is the work of some of the greatest masters of the Ghent-Bruges school: Gerard Hohenbout and Simon Bening are responsible for most of the manuscript's decoration, but they also collaborated with the world-famous panel painter Gerard David on the artistic design of the work.
To this day, it has not been established exactly who commissioned and financed the Croy Prayer Book. It was probably an unknown lady of the court of Habsburg-Burgundy. The title "Croy Prayer Book" goes back to an entry of the name of the French nobleman Guillaume de Croy on one page of the manuscript. The de Croy family enjoyed excellent relations with the Burgundian dukes John the Fearless and his son Philip the Good. The de Croys were among the wealthiest and most powerful families in Burgundy and the precious prayer book represented the greatest treasure in their private book collection. In the early 18th century, Prince Eugene of Savoy acquired the valuable work for his library, which at that time was one of the most extensive book collections in the world and in 1738 it passed in the possession of Emperor Charles VI. The Croy prayer book was always one of the absolute highlights of the Imperial collection.