Book of Hours from 1505 'of superlative quality' on brief display in London ahead of auction in New York
Readers in the UK have just four days to catch the Rothschild Prayerbook, as the Renaissance manuscript makes a brief stopover on an international tour that has already taken it to Moscow and Hong Kong ahead of an auction at Christie's New York in January 2014.
The finely illustrated Book of Hours was made circa 1505 for a member of the Habsburg imperial court in the Netherlands, and joined the Rothschild family collection in the 19th century. It will form the centrepiece of Christie's Renaissance sale during Old Masters Week in January.
The Rothschild Prayerbook was said by the auction house to be "one of the highest achievements of Flemish Renaissance painting with 150 pages and miniatures and borders of superlative quality by Gerard Horenbout". Horenbout was a Flemish miniaturist who served in the court of King Henry VIII.
As one of the finest illuminated manuscripts in private ownership, the auction is expected to be intense, with an estimated price of $12m (£7.3m) to $18m.
Nicholas Hall, international co-chairman of old masters and 19th-century art, said: "Every aspect of this Book of Hours – from the quality of the parchment to the wealth and refinement of the decoration – marks the Rothschild Prayerbook as one of the most prestigious and exquisite examples of Flemish manuscript illumination."
It also contains a wide variety of decorative borders, many of which are recognisably by "the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximillian", generally thought to be Alexander Bening, who is particularly valued for secular work such as the Roman de la Rose in the British Library.
The manuscript was returned to the Austrian branch of the Rothschild banking dynasty by the Austrian government in 1999, as part of a collection of treasures which had been stolen by the Nazis, the New York Times reported. It was sold that year by Christie's in London to an anonymous European collector for $13.4m, a world record for its category.
The manuscript is closely related to a Book of Hours held in the British Library; the Spinola Hours at the J Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles; and the Grimani Breviary, now in the Marciana library, Venice.
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