The Rothschild
Prayerbook,” a magnificent
masterpiece of Renaissance art with an illustrious provenance, sold at
Christie's New York on January 28, 2014 for 13,605,000 USD (£8,215,583 /EUR9,931,650),
maintaining its auction record for an illuminated manuscript but not equalling
its 1999 result in terms of money value.
"The Rothschild
Prayerbook is a fabulous work of art and it has been an enormous pleasure and
honour for us to be able to show it so widely and to such universal admiration,– an admiration recognized by the price it
achieved at auction today", said Kay Sutton, Director of Books and Manuscripts“. ”
One of the highest
achievements of the Flemish Renaissance, the Prayerbook, bought by a private
collector via a telephone bid, contains lavish and extensive illustration by
the most renowned court artists of their day with miniatures and borders of
unsurpassed beauty and refined execution by Gerard Horenbout, Alexander Bening
and his renowned son Simon. Perhaps the most touching and exquisite miniature
representing the Virgin and Child on a Crescent Moon is accepted as one of a
select group of illuminations by the painter Gerard David.
Likely made for
someone connected to the imperial court in the Netherlands c. 1505, this Book
of Hours, joined the fabled collections of the Rothschild family in the 19th
century. In 1999, when the Collection of the Barons Nathaniel and Albert von
Rothschild was entrusted to Christie's in London, the Rothschild Prayerbook
sold for £8,581,500/ $13,378,558, both a world record for its category and the
highest price of all the works in the celebrated collection.
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