The Master of the Prayer Books of around 1500 was a Flemish painter of

illuminated manuscript An illuminated manuscript is a formally prepared manuscript, document where the text is decorated with flourishes such as marginalia, borders and Miniature (illuminated manuscript), miniature illustrations. Often used in the Roman Catholic Churc ...

s and miniatures active in

Bruges Bruges ( , ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the province of West Flanders, in the Flemish Region of Belgium. It is in the northwest of the country, and is the sixth most populous city in the country. The area of the whole city amoun ...

from about 1485 until around 1520. His name is derived from a collection of devotional manuscripts from the same artist dating to about the start of the 16th century. The name notwithstanding, the Master is best known for the work he did painting

secular Secularity, also the secular or secularness (from Latin , or or ), is the state of being unrelated or neutral in regards to religion. The origins of secularity can be traced to the Bible itself. The concept was fleshed out through Christian hi ...

images, incorporating details from daily life in a number of his original narratives. His interest in courtly life, as well as the daily activities of the lower classes, may be seen as well in his paintings for

calendar A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A calendar date, date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is ...

s. He may have been a small group of artists in a workshop rather than an individual. His exceptional '' Roman de la Rose''

British Library The British Library is the national library of the United Kingdom. Based in London, it is one of the largest libraries in the world, with an estimated collection of between 170 and 200 million items from multiple countries. As a legal deposit li ...

Harley MS 4425 has 92 large and high quality miniatures, with a date around 1500.

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References

Master of the Prayer Books of around 1500 at the Getty Museum
15th-century births 15th-century deaths Early Netherlandish painters Manuscript illuminators Prayer Books of around 1500 Artists from Bruges 16th-century Flemish painters Year of birth unknown {{netherlandish-painter-stub