The Walters Art Museum
600 N. Charles Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
PRAYERS IN CODE: BOOKS OF HOURS FROM 16TH-CENTURY FRANCE
During the late Middle Ages, Books of Hours became common tools of private devotion and sought-after status symbols. Carried by fashionable ladies and collected by rich bibliophiles, Books of Hours differed greatly in style and ornament but were predictable in choice of pictures. The manuscripts in this exhibition present unusual images that introduce a new fashion for emblems and rebuses (pictures depicted together to represent a word) while challenging our understanding of the relationship between the illustrations and the prayer text. With selected loans to complement the museum's collection, this exhibition explores the patronage at the court of King Francis I (1494-1547) during a time when the controversies over Humanism, Reformation and Orthodoxy shaped the intellectual life of discerning patrons.
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