The Playfair Hours
The Playfair Hours
Discover more about this intriguing 15th-century prayer book
Manuscripts
The National Art Library holds a rich collection of unique manuscript material ranging from the Middle Ages to the present day, in the form of bound volumes, single documents and whole archives. It encompasses illuminated manuscripts, modern calligraphy, literary manuscripts, how-to recipe books, papers of antiquarians, artists and scholars, correspondence, inventories, business papers, and many more miscellaneous wonders.
Highlights include five notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, the original manuscripts for most of Charles Dickens’s novels, calligraphic work by Edward Johnston, one of Jonathan Swift’s diaries, a missal made in the 14th century for the Abbey of Saint-Denis in Paris, and the archives of Joseph Archer Crowe and Giovanni Battista Cavalcaselle, 19th-century specialists of Italian Renaissance art.
Collection highlights
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Li tre libri dell’arte del vasaio by Cipriano Piccolpasso, about 1557, Castel Durante (present day Urbania), Italy. Museum no. MSL/1861/7446, ff. 38v – 39r. -
Book of Hours of Margaret de Foix, 1471 – 76, Western France. Museum no. MSL/1910/2385, ff. 83v – 84r. -
Iluminated address by the Tenants of the Courtroom estates for Lord Viscount Stopford, 1875 – 78, Ireland. Museum no. MSL/1984/69/1. -
Initial ‘M’ showing St Giustina and Maximian, by Girolamo da Cremona, from an antiphonary, before 1462, Padua, Italy -
Entartete Kunst: A typescript inventory for The Reichsministerium für Volksaufklarüng und Propaganda, 1942, Germany. Museum no. MSL/1996/7/1, p. 179. -
Homilies on the Archangel Michael, 18th or early 19th century, Ethiopia. Museum no. MSL/1903/2081, f. 58v. -
Chambord Missal, 1844, Paris, France. Museum no. MSL/1984/68, f. 49r. -
Al-Wajiz, or an abridged commentary on the Koran, 1478, Egypt. Museum no. MSL/1869/7219, f. 2a. -
A Book of Verse by William Morris, 1870, London, Britain. Museum no. MSL/1953/131, p 51. -
Letters from Edward Johnston to Giorgiana, Helen, Elizabeth and Mary MacRae, 1897 – 1906, Britain. Museum no. MSL/1959/4394. -
Notebook (Codex Forster II) by Leonardo da Vinci, 1495 – 97, Milan, Italy. Museum no. MSL/1876/Forster/141/II, f. 91r. -
The Mystery of Edwin Drood, by Charles Dickens, about 1870, Britain. Museum no. MSL/1866/Forster/167/1, f. 5 recto.
Features
The Teutonic Knights Bible
The Teutonic Knights Bible
Discover the fascinating story behind one of the largest groups of manuscript cuttings in the V&A collection
The botanical album of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
The botanical album of Jacques Le Moyne de Morgues
Explore the 16th century album of exquisite watercolours in high definition
Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks
Leonardo da Vinci's notebooks
The V&A holds five notebooks owned by Leonardo da Vinci – a unique insight into one of the greatest minds of the Italian Renaissance
Turning the pages of an illuminated manuscript
Turning the pages of an illuminated manuscript
Watch as we open up a medieval choirbook
'Entartete Kunst': The Nazis' inventory of 'degenerate art'
'Entartete Kunst': The Nazis' inventory of 'degenerate art'
Discover the story behind this unique document
Explore 'Entartete Kunst': The Nazis' inventory of 'degenerate art'
Explore 'Entartete Kunst': The Nazis' inventory of 'degenerate art'
A unique document providing crucial information about the provenance, exhibition history and fate of each artwork confiscated by the Nazi regime
Piccolpasso's treatise on maiolica
Piccolpasso's treatise on maiolica
The V&A not only holds the greatest collection of maiolica in the world, but also this unique treatise describing its manufacture.
Illuminated manuscripts
Illuminated manuscripts
Discover the V&A's vast collection of illuminated manuscripts and cuttings
Provenance and restitution: the Emma Budge Collection
Provenance and restitution: the Emma Budge Collection
An important resource for provenance researchers documenting works of art forcibly sold by the Nazis
