Milan-Turin Hours

The Turin-Milan Hours (or Milan-Turin hours, Turin Hours etc.) is a partially destroyed illuminated manuscript, which despite its name is not strictly a book of hours. It is of exceptional quality and importance, with a very complicated history both during and after its production. It contains several miniatures of about 1420 attributed to an artist known as "Hand G" who was probably either Jan van Eyck, his brother Hubert van Eyck, or an artist very closely associated with them. About a decade or so later Barthélemy d'Eyck may have worked on some miniatures. Of the several portions of the book, that kept in Turin was destroyed in a fire in 1904, though black-and-white photographs exist.

Work on the manuscript began around 1380 or 1390, and over the course of almost sixty years involved a variety of artists, assistants and patrons during perhaps seven separate campaigns of work. Its conception and first leaves were commissioned by a high-ranking member of the French court whose identity is now lost, and involved mainly French artists. Before 1413 it was in the possession of Jean, Duc de Berry; by 1420 in that of the Count of Holland John of Bavaria, who contracted mostly Flemish artists.

The early leafs are highly decorative and ornate and completed within International Gothic traditions, with stylized backgrounds but comparatively flat depth of field. The pages thought to have been compiled from the mid-1410s show particular skill in portraying perspective, especially those attributed to Hand G.

The work was commissioned in about 1380 or 1390, perhaps by the person who later owned it, Jean, Duc de Berry, brother of Charles V of France, and the leading commissioner of illuminated manuscripts of the day. The original commissioner was certainly a great person of the French court – Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, uncle of the King and Berry, has also been suggested. It seems to have been conceived, very unusually, as a combined book of hours, prayer-book and missal, all parts to be lavishly illustrated. The first artist involved was the leading master of the period known as the Master of the Narbonne Parement. There was another campaign by other artists in about 1405, by which time the manuscript was probably owned by the Duke of Berry, who had certainly acquired it by 1413, when the work, still very incomplete, was given to the Duke's treasurer, Robinet d'Estampes, who divided it. D'Estampes retained most of the actual book of hours, whose illustrations were largely complete, which became known as the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame. This remained in his family until the 18th century, and was finally given to the BnF in Paris (MS: Nouvelle acquisition latine 3093) by the Rothschild family in 1956, after they had owned it for nearly a century. This section contains 126 folios with 25 miniatures, the latest perhaps of about 1409, and includes work by the Limbourg brothers.

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