A beautifully illuminated leaf from a luxurious fifteenth-century French Book of Hours. This leaf is from the central text of the Book of Hours, the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin" (or Hours of the Virgin), which was modelled on the Divine Office and represents a shorter version of the devotions performed at the eight canonical hours of the day.

A beautifully illuminated leaf from a luxurious fifteenth-century French Book of Hours. This leaf is from the central text of the Book of Hours, the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin" (or Hours of the Virgin), which was modelled on the Divine Office and represents a shorter version of the devotions performed at the eight canonical hours of the day.

The panel border on each face of the page is composed of blue and gold acanthus leaves alternating with mauve, red, blue and white flowers on shaped grounds of liquid gold. The text contains three 2-line initials in white on pink grounds, one single-line initial in liquid gold on red and eleven line-fillers in similar colours, including some naturalistic branch motifs.

The delicate initials suggest that it was executed in either Paris or Rouen, while the unusual geometric forms picked out in liquid gold in the margins, clearly show this to be work dating from the late 1400s.