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Simon Vostre

Book of Hours, Use of Paris

1508
Woodcut and letterpress in black with brush and gouache, and pen and ink on vellum (discolored at edges), in eighteenth-century full red goatskin, sewn on raised bands, with Cambridge-style gold tooling, rolled edges in gold, gold stamped spine decoration, hand-sewn silk headbands, and marbled endsheets
22.6 × 30 cm (8.9 × 11.8 in)

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In the collection of Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago · as of July 2026

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FROM THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO’S CATALOG

Books of hours printed on vellum capitalized on the desirability of more expensive illuminated manuscripts. The coloring of this example is limited to blue and red in the initials, while its full-page woodcuts, such as this Nativity , help organize the book’s religious content, including the devotional calendar. Simon Vostre reprinted the metalcut borders from his earlier printed books of hours opposite woodcuts from Vostre’s Grandes Heures , now attributed to Jean Pichore. The cutting of the Pichore blocks is finely detailed, with figures and architectural motifs larger than the three-quarter-page metalcuts from the 1490s, suggesting that the clientele had new expectations of an Italianate Renaissance style.

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