Picture Day Friday: Rare Black Vellum Manuscript

A rare black vellum Book of Hours from Bruges c.1480. It's kept at the Morgan Library and Museum in NYC. (MS M.493, folio 18 verso and 19 recto)

All 121 vellum folios of The Black Hours are stained in black. To make the writing stand out against the dark background, only white lead and opaque paints were used for the miniatures, and gold and silver ink for the script. Only three of these black parchment manuscripts survive to this day.


[Image copyrighted by Europe's History.]