This prayer book was commissioned by Anne de Bretagne, wife of two successive kings of France, Charles VIII and Louis XII, to teach her son, the dauphin Charles-Orland (1492–1495), his catechism. It was painted in Tours by Jean Poyer, an artist documented as working for the queen. The book is richly illustrated, and its thirty-four airy, light-flooded miniatures are among the most delicate examples of late-fifteenth-century art.
St. Anne Instructing the Virgin (fol. 13, right)
St. Anne points to a place in
the book held by her daughter,
the young Virgin Mary, while
Anne's other daughters eagerly
await instruction in the
background.
Anne de Bretagne's attachment
to her patron and namesake is
reflected in the priority she gives
to the saint in the sequence of
fourteen Suffrages, or prayers
dedicated to saints, of which
St. Anne's is the first.
The saint's pedagogical role
mirrored Anne's intention to
use this book as an instructional
manual for her young son,
Charles-Orland.
Poyer portrays St. Anne in the Hours of Henry VIII.
