The Golf Book (Book of Hours)

The British Library, London

Shelf Mark: Add. Ms. 24098.
Date: c. 1530.
Size: ± 220 x 145 mm.
Size of the illuminations: ± 115 x 84 mm.
60 pages, most of them with full-page illuminations.
Work by Simon Bening.
Bound in blue leather.
Leather case.
Commentary volume (256 p.) by Carlos Miranda García-Tejedor (Doctor in History).
Unique and unrepeatable first edition, strictly limited to 987 numbered and authenticated copies.
ISBN: 978-84-88526-99-1

Commentary volume

The Golf Book (Book of Hours) The British Library, London

Size: 210 mm x 300 mm
Pages: 256
Illustrations: 212 full-colour
Language: English
ISBN: 978-84-16509-78-2

Contents:

From the editor to the reader
Manuel Moleiro

Simon Bening and the painting of his time
Carlos Miranda García-Tejedor (Doctor in History)

The Golf Book.
Stylistic and iconographic analysis
Carlos Miranda García-Tejedor

Transcription and translation
Carlos Miranda García-Tejedor

Bibliography and contents

The Golf Book (Book of Hours) The British Library, London

Description

The Golf Book (Book of Hours)

The British Library, London

The person for whom this marvellous Book of Hours was made is still unknown. Running along the bottom of the pages in the calendar is a series of images that have always been of great interest. They depict sports activities and other pastimes typical of the period when the manuscript was made. One of the games portrayed is golf, the reason why this book is also known as the “Golf Book”. In addition to these small, marginal scenes, the pages of the calendar are characterized by a series of miniatures depicting daily work and leisure activities typical of the 16th century.

The son of the artist Alexander Bening, Simon Bening was born in 1483 or 84 in Ghent. Around the year 1500 he began working in Bruges and Ghent, before finally settling in Bruges in about 1519. His workshop produced countless books of hours, all truly outstanding, for people of high rank in across Europe. He was undoubtedly the best known miniaturist of his time. His oeuvre includes such noteworthy items as the Prayer Book of Cardinal Albrecht of Brandenburg (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum) and the Da Costa Hours (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library). Bening died in 1561 at the age of 78.