During the second half of the fifteenth and the beginning of the sixteenth century, Flemish manuscript painters created some of the most beautiful and distinctive examples of Renaissance art. Combining traditional medieval workshop patterns and practices with an increasingly scientific attention to the use of perspective, light, and shadow, Flemish artists added a sense of volume to their prayerful and playful scenes that still enchants viewers hundreds of years later.
Gifted to the Library in 1941 by the family of Felix Warburg, the Warburg Hours is one of these tiny masterpieces. Crafted around 1500 by an as-yet unidentified workshop, this little Book of Hours features trompe l’oeil borders that anticipate the naturalism of the still-life paintings that flourished in Northern Europe a century later. Identifiable flowers and fruits—such as the violets and strawberries in the border below—mingle with mythical grotesques and intricately rendered insects.
Other leaves of the Warburg Hours dazzle the viewer with borders containing pearls and gems so convincing that the treasures appear to be in danger of rolling from the painting with a turn of the page.
On the leaves that contain large miniatures, the borders function as a liminal space in which the eternal and the natural worlds are presented as playfully contiguous. On folio 16, an expertly painted Salvator mundi gazes directly at the reader as if looking through a window. He raises his hand in a gesture of blessing while a snail in the border to his right slowly climbs the stem of a violet. Directly below, a fly descends upon a perfectly ripe strawberry—it’s little legs outstretched in perpetual preparation for landing. The berry, plump and heavy on its stem, looks sweet and juicy. The reader can almost smell it.
Woven into each of these strewn flower borders are religious and moral messages that are a challenge to untangle; the flexibility and relational nature of the symbolic program offers to the reader paintings of persistent interest that are capable of capturing attention even after repeated use renders them familiar. The naturalism of the art, however, is a constant source of wonder.
In recognition of its fine, illusionistic borders, the Warburg Book of Hours is on exhibit from May 18 through November 2, 2025 at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. The exhibition, titled “Little Beasts: Art, Wonder, and the Natural World,” features nearly 75 paintings, prints, and drawings in a unique presentation alongside specimens and taxidermy from the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History.
This exhibition is the first time within the past several years that the public will have an opportunity to view the Warburg Hours. Recently, the manuscript has undergone extensive treatment in the Library’s Conservation Division that made it unavailable for viewing until now. Rebound during the early nineteenth century in a structure so stiff that a comfortable opening was impeded, the Warburg Hours required the Library’s book conservationists to create a new, strong but flexible binding for this little treasure.
A lengthy and challenging undertaking due to the heavy application of adhesive (hide glue) by the earlier binder, rebinding the Warburg Hours was a delicate, thoughtful, and multi-step project. Senior Book Conservator, Dan Paterson, removed the problematic binding, cleaned the spine, reduced the adhesive in the gutters, checked the paint and gold leaf for friability through the entire manuscript, repaired spine folds, sewed raised supports, built a non-adhesive spine to impart greater flexibility, and covered the wooden boards in a green leather goatskin. In addition to treating the Warburg Hours itself, he created two prototypes bindings before crafting the final binding.
The headbands are sewn in a traditional and lively chevron pattern in blue and green thread that complements the green goat leather and the blue and green used in the paintings throughout the manuscript.
The result of Dan Paterson’s work is a manuscript that is not only beautiful but that can now be shown and read and digitized without compromising the long-term health of the artwork. To view the Warburg Hours in person, find it in the “Little Beasts” exhibit in the West Building, Ground Floor, Gallery 23 at the National Gallery of Art!
Sources and Further Reading:
As-Vijvers, A. M. W. (2003). “More than Marginal Meaning? The Interpretation of Ghent-Bruges Border Decoration.” Oud Holland 117, No. 1, Pp. 3-33.
Hindman, S., & Marrow, J., (Eds). (2013). Books of Hours Reconsidered. London: Harvey Miller Publishers.
Kren, T. (2010). Illuminated Manuscripts from Belgium and the Netherlands in the J. Paul Getty Museum. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Kren, T., & McKendrick, S. (2003). Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe. Los Angeles, Calif.: J. Paul Getty Museum.
Walters Art Gallery. (1949). Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages and Renaissance: An Exhibition Held at the Baltimore Museum of Art Gallery in Cooperation with the Baltimore Museum of Art. Baltimore: Trustees of the Walters Art Gallery.
Wieck, R. (2017). The Medieval Calendar: Locating Time in the Middle Ages. New York, NY : The Morgan Library & Museum, New York, in association with Scala Arts Publishers, Inc.
Wieck, R. (1988). Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life. New York: G. Braziller in association with the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore.
Click here to subscribe to Bibliomania and never miss a post!