X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Janet Backhouse


Harley Psalter

Janet Backhouse described the Harley Psalter as "one of the most important of all pre-Conquest English illuminated manuscripts".

Isabella Breviary

According to Janet Backhouse, former head of manuscripts at the British Library, “the Isabella Breviary is one of the most valuable treasures in the British Library’s enormous manuscript collection, a work the reflects both the artistic and the political history of its period (…) this acquisition is one of the most important purchases of an illuminated manuscript in the history of the British Museum and its library.”1

Quentin Poulet

However Janet Backhouse has suggested that the manuscript was originally a product of the reign of Edward IV, with the decoration left incomplete on his death, and then with illuminations added around 1500, presumably under Poulet's supervision.



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