The Nativity of Christ, full-page miniature on one of two facing leaves from a Book of Hours, in Latin [southern Netherlands (Bruges), c.1460-70]

two leaves, each c.114xc.79mm, vellum, with a miniature and the beginning for Prime in the Hours of the Virgin, 17 lines, 70x42mm, slightly rubbed with small pigment loss

The subtle semi-grisaille illumination is characteristic of the work of the MILDMAY MASTER, named after the Book of Hours owned by the English Mildmay family (Chicago, Newberry Library, MS 35; see N. Rogers, Books of Hours Produced in the Low Countries for the English Market in the Fifteenth Century, M.Litt., University of Cambridge, 1982). An associate of Willem Vrelant, one of the most influential illuminators in Bruges in the third quarter of the 15th century, the Mildmay Master collaborated with Vrelant on commissions for the Duke of Burgundy and members of his court. The use of grey and silver, notably for the large initial and some of the acanthus leaves, corresponds with the semi-grisaille of the miniature, a technique that was very fashionable at the Burgundian Court.