Hours of Henry VIII Facsimile Edition

The Hours of Henry VIII is the undisputed masterpiece of Jean Poyer (also known as Jean Poyet), a talented illuminator active in Tours around 1500. The book has, at its heart, the Hours of the Virgin, a series of daily prayer services for the Christian laity focused on the Virgin Mary. Its illumination includes fourteen full-page and forty half-page miniatures. An eighteenth-century tradition claims the book was once owned by Henry VIII, King of England. This is possible but not provable, though the book certainly passed through the collections of later British monarchs.

Seven (of an original eight) full-page miniatures of scenes from the infancy of Christ illustrate the Hours of the Virgin (fols. 31-93). Another full-page miniature, which introduces the Penitential Psalms, depicts the rare scene of Uriah Receiving a Letter from King David (fol. 108v).

An Illuminator Much in Demand and Admired

Jean Poyer was employed by French kings and queens and was lauded in his own time as a consummate master who rivaled the artists of ancient Greece and his near contemporaries, including Jean Fouquet and Andrea Mantegna. Among his important commissions is a prayer book illuminated for Anne of Brittany.

Jean Poyer, Master of Perspective

A distinguishing feature of the manuscript's illumination is the landscape format of the half-page miniatures, each of which is paired with a historiated border in monochrome camaïeu with gold highlights. Indeed, all of the miniatures feature abundant gold highlights.

Many of the half-page miniatures exhibit Poyer's mastery of both atmospheric and linear perspective. The scene of the decapitation of Saint Barbara, for example, is set in a deep landscape that affords a glimpse of the distant cave where she had hidden from her persecutors. The shepherds who betrayed her are pictured in the middle distance, their sheep miraculously turned into insects (fol. 190v).

Fashionable Script

The text was written by a single scribe in French Bâtarde, the formal version of a cursive script sometimes employed in France for high-quality devotional manuscripts. The calendar is written in two columns and the devotional texts in long lines (a single column). The most important feast days in the calendar are written in blue or red.

A Miniature in Paris

The manuscript is missing three leaves, which were removed for their miniatures. One such miniature, which shows the Virgin and Child Enthroned in a magnificent neo-classical architectural setting and introduced the votive Mass for the Virgin, has been identified (Paris, Musée du Louvre, RF 3890).

An Eighteenth-Century Legend

Probably made for a member of the French royal family or a courtier, the book has as its first securely identifiable owner Charles Benoit Desmanet. George Wade (1673-1748) purchased the manuscript from Desmanet's executors.

Wade added a note on the book's final leaf recording the unlikely story that the manuscript had been given by Charles V (1500-1558), Holy Roman Emperor, to Henry VIII (1491-1547), King of England (fol. 200r). The eighteenth-century binding of red velvet reflects the legend of Henry's ownership. The silver clasp features the English royal arms and monogram H(enricus) 8 R(ex).

A Distinguished Provenance

Subsequent owners include kings of Britain and Hanover. Dannie H. Heineman (1872-1962) purchased the manuscript for his wife, Hettie Heineman (1890-1974), who willed it to the Heineman Foundation. In 1977, the foundation donated the Heineman Collection to the Pierpont Morgan Library (now Morgan Library & Museum).