Morganmobile: Spring(ing)

Morganmobile Home

Zoom

Zoom

In the month of April, a foppishly dressed youth, his hands filled with freshly picked spring flowers, waits while his lady friend weaves the blossoms into a floral crown. French artist Jean Poyer painted large calendar illustrations in this Book of Hours that is considered his masterpiece. An eighteenth-century owner thought that the manuscript had once belonged to Henry VIII. Although the book has no sixteenth-century marks of ownership—and thus no connection to that English king—its nickname, “Hours of Henry VIII,” stuck. The entire codex can be enjoyed in a digital facsimile.

April, “Hours of Henry VIII,” France, Tours, ca. 1500, illuminated by Jean Poyer. Gift of the Heineman Foundation, 1977; MS H.8, fol. 2v (det.).