Edition details
The Playfair Hours, A Late 15th. Century Illuminated manuscript from Rouen. (V&A, L.475-1918). Commentary by Rowan Watson. Published Victoria & Albert Museum in association with the Folio Society. 31 page colour printed facsimile plus 30 monochrome plates. Bound in dark blue cloth with gilt spine title. Blue pattern printed endleaves. Dark blue slipcase with a colour image printed cover label. 126pp. 22.7x15.9cm.
About the book
The Playfair Hours explores a late fifteenth-century illuminated Book of Hours produced in Rouen and now held by the Victoria and Albert Museum. Rowan Watson's commentary places its prayers, painted scenes and decoration within the workshops and devotional culture that created it. The manuscript offers a glimpse of private religious practice at a time when richly decorated prayer books were both treasured possessions and products of skilled commercial craftsmanship. Reproductions and historical explanation make this an introduction to medieval manuscript illumination, book production and the relationship between art and everyday belief.
