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5 unusual facts about Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany


Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany

All their four children died as infants, so when Charles died in 1498, logic dictated a marriage with his cousin and successor, Louis XII, once he had annulled his marriage with Anne's sister-in-law Jeanne de France.

The Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany (Les Grandes Heures d'Anne de Bretagne in French) is a book of hours, commissioned by Anne of Brittany, Queen of France to two kings in succession, and illuminated in Tours or perhaps Paris by Jean Bourdichon between 1503 and 1508.

Anthony Blunt noted that "Many of his designs – for instance the 'St Sebastian' – look in reproduction like altarpieces rather than miniatures; and to this extent his art represents the decay of true illumination".

Blunt, Anthony, Art and Architecture in France, 1500–1700, 2nd edn 1957, Penguin

Anne of Brittany was the last independent ruler of Brittany, inheriting the Duchy as a girl of twelve in 1488, and securing her inheritance was a crucial matter for both the House of Habsburg and the French Crown.



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