Millard Meiss, author. George Braziller, Inc., New York, first American edition, 1974. 2 vols, cloth, Quarto 12x9 inches, 544 pages, 898 illustrations, 35 in color.
A very nice set of the seminal study on the Limbourgs, perhaps the most famous miniature illuminators in the Middle Ages. Owners signature on flyleaf in text volume - internally in very clean condition, dust jackets present, but rubbed with some soiling and small tears.
This is long out of print, and copies are being offered on the internet in excess of $250.00.
From the dustjacket: "The present publication is concerned with the period 1400-1425 when the passion of French painters and their patrons for pictures in books led to one of the high points in the history of the illuminated manuscript...Professor Meiss seeks to identify the unique qualities of painting in France; he concentrates not on the International Style but on the literary, intellectual and religious context of French painting of the time...Professor Meiss undertakes here the first comprehensive study of the Limbourgs, which has led him to advance hypotheses about the nature of their collaboration. Essential to these conclusions is the first close study of their earliest work, the documented bible, which offers an exceptional insight into the early formation of a painter's style. Proceeding to the two books of hours, Millard Meiss proposes to distinguish in most of the miniatures the style of one or another of the brothers at different stages of their development. ...The last chapter in the book is devoted to the Rohan Master and two little-known, like-minded painters who utilized the work of the Limbourgs and their contemporaries but transformed it into an art of more intense feeling. The illustrations include all the miniatures of the Limbourgs in the Tres Riche Heures..."
