History
The early history of the book is obscure, and the original owner is unknown, though he or she would clearly have been a very wealthy person. This is a feature shared by several important manuscripts of the late Ghent-Bruges school, where typically the heraldry and portraits of the owners of most luxury manuscripts are not found. The contents of the book, which has extra mass texts and prayers beyond those usually found in a book of hours, contain distinctive elements that relate it to the Chartreuse des Dunes, near Bruges. By 1500 the printed book of hours had largely replaced manuscript ones, except for luxury books like this, which were restricted to the higher nobility and royalty. The manuscript belonged to the princely Wittelsbach family in the 16th century, and then to the library of the counts palatine in Heidelberg, leaving that collection before 1623. Its history is then unknown until it reappeared in the collection of the Viennese branch of the Rothschild family in the late 19th century.
It was confiscated from Louis Nathaniel von Rothschild immediately after the March 1938 German annexation of Austria. After the end of World War II, the new Austrian government used legislation forbidding the export of culturally significant works of art in part to pressure the Rothschilds into "donating" a large number of works to Austrian museums, including the prayerbook, which went to the National Library. In exchange the family was allowed to export other works. Under international pressure over this and similar disputes, the government of Austria returned the book and other works of art to the Rothschild family in 1999. The book was sold for them by Christie's auction house in London on July 8, 1999 for £8,580,000 (then $13,400,000), still in March 2009 the world auction record price for an illuminated manuscript.
A full facsimile has been published: E. Trenkier, Rothschild Gebetbuch: facsimile und comentarium, Codices Selecti, 67 (Graz, 1979).
Read more about this topic: Rothschild Prayerbook
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