Art in a Time of War : The Master of Morgan 453 and Manuscript Illumination in Paris During the English Occupation (1419-1435)

Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, first edition, 2016. Cloth, 4to,. xxviii, 388 pp, 175 ills (chiefly in colour). From the publisher's description: Art in a Time of War seeks to fill an important gap in our knowledge of painting in fifteenth-century France. Focusing on the work of 'the Master of Morgan 453,' an accomplished, if unnamed, manuscript illuminator, Clark identifies, compares, and analyzes all extant books that can be attributed to the painter and reconstructs his career on the basis of a wide range of liturgical as well as art-historical criteria. In examining collaborations and workshop practices involving many different illuminators who hailed not only from Northern France but also from the Netherlands, Clark's work also sheds light on complex artistic interchanges between France, Flanders, and England at a time of profound political change. The survey of the career of the Morgan 453 Master and his intense artistic milieu is complemented by a comprehensive catalogue of manuscripts and a checklist of Parisian illuminators and manuscripts, ca. 1420-1450, as well as liturgical appendices and an associated website. Contents include: Introduction : Parisian illumination from the Treaty of Troyes (1420) to the Truce of Tours (1444); Morgan 1000, the Brussels Grandes Chroniques, and the artistic origins and character of the Master of Morgan 453; The Master of Morgan 453 and his collaborators in Grenoble 1003; The Master of Morgan 453 and his collaborators in Morgan 1004; The Master of Morgan 453 and his collaborators in Morgan 453; The Master of Morgan 453 in Northern France and Amiens : the British Library Hours (add. 31835); The return to Paris : the Master of Morgan 453 and the Harvard Hours. Inscribed, signed and dated by the author on the front free endpaper. Near Fine in Near Fine dustwrapper.