Turin Hours

Turin Hours. Manuscript Book of Hours produced over an extended period with illustrations by several Franco-Netherlandish artists, one of whom was possibly Jan van Eyck. The history of the manuscript is complex. It was begun in 1389 for Jean, Duc de Berry (the great-uncle of van Eyck's patron Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy), but it was not finished until about 1447, after passing through the hands of several owners, including John of Bavaria (for whom van Eyck worked in 1422–5) and possibly Philip the Good himself. Part of the manuscript was destroyed by a fire in Turin in 1904, but the illustrations that perished are known in photographs; the remaining parts are divided between Turin (Mus. Civico) and Paris (Bib. Nat. and Louvre). Three of the surviving illustrations are so close to Jan van Eyck in style and of such high quality that many scholars attribute them to him (or to his brother Hubert): The Birth of St John the Baptist, The Mass of the Dead, and The Finding of the True Cross (all three are in Turin). One of the striking features of the illustrations is their subtle observation of nature, and Kenneth Clark thought that they included ‘the first modern landscapes’. If they are by Jan, they must be his earliest surviving works, probably made before John of Bavaria's death in 1425. However, James Snyder (Northern Renaissance Art, 1985) thinks it more likely that they are ‘the works of a talented imitator of Van Eyck's style, executed about 1435 or later’.