The discovery of the Book of Hours of Duchess Catherine of Cleves in the 1960s caused many art historians to change their views on fifteenth-century northern Netherlandish book illumination in a positive way. Instead of being regarded as a rather provincial school, Dutch book illumination was appreciated much more after the Cleves Hours had the chance to reveal her beauty to the world. The Book of Hours, made around 1440, has weathered the centuries in remarkable condition—missing only a few leaves—but was divided into two parts in the middle of the nineteenth century. Both parts miraculously found their way into the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. In the past fifty years the public had several opportunities to get acquainted with “Kitty,” as the book is affectionately called by the library staff, although visitors to the exhibitions had to content themselves with the four opening pages of the two books, sometimes complemented by reproductions on the wall. However, to scholars specializing in medieval books, the Cleves Hours is a household name and the decoration is widely regarded as the pinnacle of Dutch painting of the Late Middle Ages. Due to the lack of knowledge about his true identity, the miniaturist responsible for all this was named after the manuscript: the Master of Catherine of Cleves.

At the end of 2009, Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen had the honor of welcoming “Kitty” to the Netherlands for the third time for the exhibition Catherine’s World: Devotion, Demons and Daily Life in the Fifteenth Century, not far from the place that the Grand Dame was taken into hand by her first owner almost six hundred years ago. Because both parts of the manuscript had been taken apart, the exhibition, curated by Ruud Priem and Rob Dückers, allowed the more than one hundred folios to be shown to the public simultaneously for the first time. Although the adoration of the Cleves Hours had already resulted in many extensive publications—from facsimile editions (John Plummer, The Hours of Catherine of Cleves, London: Barrie and Rockliff, 1966) to the most comprehensive and detailed monograph that has probably ever been written on a manuscript (Friedrich Gorissen, Das Studenbuch der Katharina von Kleve: Analysis und Kommentar, Berlin: Mann, 1973)—no fewer than four publications accompanied the current exhibition. One of these was a scholarly catalogue for experts in the field of medieval manuscripts.

This voluminous scholarly catalogue contains essays by authorities on Dutch illumination. The last detailed stylistic study of the Master of Catherine of Cleves, Robert Calkins’s Distribution of Labor: The Illuminators of the Hours of Catherine of Cleves and Their Workshop, appeared in 1979 (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society). As a result of the research preceded by and issuing from the important exhibition The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting at the Rijksmuseum Het Catharijneconvent in Utrecht in 1989 (and the Morgan Library in New York in 1990), one would expect the knowledge since then to be advanced to the extent that this scholarly catalogue would be a substantial contribution to the study of northern Netherlandish book illumination. The disassembly of both manuscripts also created high hopes for new results to be presented. Unfortunately, the book does not fully meet these expectations.

The Hours of Catherine of Cleves exhibition provided Museum Het Valkhof with a second opportunity to display a famous medieval manuscript. In 2005, the museum also hosted a large-scale exhibition on the Limbourg Brothers. The core of this exhibition was formed by the Belles Heures, which like the Cleves Hours was taken apart and displayed in a similar way. And like the Cleves Hours, the exhibition was accompanied by a well-designed scholarly catalogue consisting of essays and entries on the exhibited items. Among the two exhibitions and the two catalogues, one can find a strong resemblance as if the museum tried to emphasize the relationship between the manuscripts and their illuminators in order to justify this second exhibition. The outward appearance—the content, size, and design—are virtually identical, so that the two books almost appear as part of a series. In the first paragraph of the foreword this relation is stressed by director Marijke Brouwer, who calls the Book of Hours of Duchess Catherine of Cleves the “Dutch Très Riches Heures.” After an entertaining introduction by Morgan curator Roger Wieck in which the rising star of “Kitty” from the moment of her discovery until now is briefly summarized, and in which his love for the manuscript is palpable, there is an essay by leading expert James H. Marrow. In it another comparison is made between the Master of Catherine of Cleves and the Limbourg Brothers. Marrow does not focus on similarities in composition or iconography of figural motifs. However, he emphasizes the more abstract treatment of space and the ways both the Cleves Master and the Limbourg Brothers took the liberty they were granted from their patrons “to develop new ways of seeing and representing the world” by abandoning pictorial conventions and rethinking the design of the Book of Hours (22). Unfortunately, there is little concrete evidence that the Cleves Master was any more familiar with the work of the Limbourg Brothers than the average Dutch illuminator, which would have made the comparison between the two even stronger. Nevertheless, Marrow clearly shows why the work of these illuminators exceeded the average and deserves its universal acclaim.

In her essay Anne Korteweg discusses a few of the major issues that for decades have occupied scholars, for example, the localization of the Master of Catherine of Cleves. Korteweg states that because of the evidence found in the manuscript itself, like the pen-flourishing, the Cleves Master can be considered a Utrecht illuminator “for once and for all”—a view not shared as strongly by all of the catalogue’s contributors. Korteweg summarizes the limited knowledge concerning book production in the northern Netherlands in general, and that of the Cleves Master in particular. Her research is strongly indebted to Calkins and his convincing demonstration through stylistic analysis how workshops were organized in the North and that the Cleves Master was not the head of a large workshop with many assistants but collaborated only with a few others. Korteweg deepens this research and sharpens it. For instance where Calkins is still searching for an explanation why some miniatures were painted by the Cleves Master while the minor decoration on the back of the same folio was painted by an assistant, Korteweg offers a solution for how the labor between the two illuminators was distributed and how this peculiarity could occur. She also discusses a manuscript previously not dealt with in the study of the corpus of the Cleves Master.

Because of its groundbreaking research and the new insights it provides into the Cleves Hours, Korteweg’s essay is the catalogue’s highlight. In his text, Henri Defoer, one of the initiators of the Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting exhibition, compares art from the Golden Age of the seventeenth century with fifteenth-century book illumination based on the realism that is so distinctive for Dutch art. Although he illustrates his story with examples from the Cleves Hours, the essay seems more of a justification for the exhibition’s title organized over twenty years ago than as a useful contribution to a scholarly catalogue on this manuscript. The codicological reconstruction of the Book of Hours made by Dückers is certainly not the first one published, but its clarity is refreshing; no fewer than twelve pages are allotted for a visual representation of the structure of the original book: the collation, the textual content, and the decoration program. The running text prior to these diagrams, however, at times reads like a lesson in “manuscript studies for beginners.” Nevertheless, his choice to illustrate each step in the production process with examples from the Cleves Hours justifies its presence in the catalogue.

Although the illuminator of the manuscript is the main focus of attention throughout the catalogue, Bert Thissen’s essay gives a thorough biographical sketch of the Duchess Catherine herself. The political situation of Guelders and Cleves, Catherine’s youth, and her marriage with Arnold of Egmond are discussed in detail. Thissen mentions in his introduction that this biography offers little new information to that contained in publications by Isaak Anne Nijhoff (Gedenkwaardigheden uit de geschiedenis van Gelderland, door onuitgegeven oorkonden opgehelderd en bevestigd, Arnhem: P. Nijhoff, 1830–1875) and Gerard Nijsten (In the Shadow of Burgundy: The Court of Guelders in the Late Middle Ages, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004). Moreover, Thissen’s article was integrally included in one of the three other publications. The essay is also located in a rather unusual place within the catalogue, and its insertion immediately after the preface would have been more logical.

Overall, the essays are not of equal scholarly quality and usefulness, and some of them lack new research. With the disassembly of both manuscripts, for example, technical analysis in the form of infrared reflectography certainly would have been possible, as well as taking microscopic photographs. In the past such research was carried out on the Belles Heures, and it would have provided a wonderful addition to the extensive literature on the Cleves Hours as well.

Questions also arise regarding the catalogue entries. A book of hours in Museum Catharijneconvent in Utrecht (Museum Catharijneconvent, BMH h 165, cat no. 17) is associated with a book of hours in Boston (Boston Public Library, Ms. q Med. 162, cat. no. 19). The question whether both books were painted by the same illuminator remains, according to the author, “a subject for further investigation” (174). This is a missed opportunity since the exhibition, which collected for the first time virtually all manuscripts of the Cleves Master and his followers, would have been the perfect platform for such comparative research, and would have raised the scholarly value of the catalogue considerably. Furthermore, the exhibition seems to have been scheduled too early to conduct stylistic research. That this scholarly catalogue, which was not available to the public until after the opening, was created under deadline pressure is perceptible in several places: images are swapped (cat. nos. 38d and 38c), authors’ names are misspelled (Henri Defoer is spelled Defour consistently in the notes), and portions of the running text are placed in the middle of a footnote no fewer than three times (p. 17 footnote 14; p. 85 footnote 18; p. 133 footnote 22). What is more, the catalogue misses the folio numbers of the reproduced pages, which makes it inconvenient for scholarly use. In many cases the entry text has no relation to the image on the opposing page. That the catalogue only became available weeks after the exhibition opened is a pity for the visitors, since this book—despite the large and heavy format—seems to be specially created to wander with from showcase to showcase. In the first rooms, medieval objects, which the Cleves Master had painted in the book’s beautiful borders, were exhibited. Medieval pots and pans, shoes, coins, and bird cages offered the audience a chance to see what the medieval illuminator possibly saw. Although the catalogue includes entries on these objects, the images are unfortunately not depicted.

As previously mentioned, the exhibition was accompanied by three additional publications. For true fans of “Kitty” a new, beautiful facsimile edition was created by Faksimile Verlag Luzern. It contains reproductions of all folios from both parts of the manuscript in their original order, including the text pages, which were omitted in Plummer’s facsimile of 1973. Despite its preciousness and the fact that it exists as a limited edition, this new facsimile was available for visitors of the exhibition to leaf through. Two small exhibitions in and near the museum featuring the Duchess received the joint catalogue Op reis en aan tafel met Katherina van Kleef, 1417–1476 (Travelling and Dining with Catherine of Cleves, 1417–1476, Antwerp: Ludion, 2009), which was only published in Dutch and aimed at a general audience. For the general visitor who wanted a beautiful memento from the main exhibition and was eager to learn more about “Kitty,” From the Hand of the Master: The Hours of Catherine of Cleves (Antwerp: Ludion, 2009) was available. It contains four accessible essays written by art historians specializing in fifteenth-century book illumination, and includes a selection of thirty-five color plates. It serves its intended general audience perfectly with informative and accessible essays.