Leaf from a Book of Hours: The Last Judgment

1430s

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Culture

Flanders, Ghent (?), 15th century

Medium

ink, tempera and gold on vellum

Measurements

Each leaf: 12.6 x 8.5 cm (4 15/16 x 3 3/8 in.)

Credit Line

The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection 1999.130

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Location

Not on view

Description

The Master of Guillebert de Mets is named after the scribe who records his name in an illuminated copy of the Decameron, made for Duke Philip the Good of Burgundy, and for which he contributed many of its miniatures. He was active from about 1410 to 1445. So far there is no proof that allows us to follow his career or to know precisely where he worked. Calendars in other manuscripts with which he is associated suggest his shop may have been in Tournai, Liège, Bruges, and more credibly, Ghent. His commissions may have been linked to the itinerant Burgundian court, though no original provenance survives for any of his manuscripts. The Master of Guillebert de Mets painted in an easily recognizable style. His figures have prominent heads with well-delineated eyes and small mouths, slender torsos with thin, spindly legs, and long, finely worked fingers. Many of his miniatures, such as the Crucifixion and the Last Judgment here, show that he often favored mosaic backgrounds of delicately worked checkered patterns.