Master of the Collins Hours

This painter and illuminator active between the 1430s and 1440s was conventionally named by John Plummer after the book of hours owned in the nineteenth century by the collector Phillip S. Collins, now in Philadelphia (Philadelphia Museum of Art, inv. 1945-65-4). This manuscript, with features characteristic of the illumination and liturgical practices of the Bruges region, was created for an unknown lady. The Master of the Collins Hours is thought to have emigrated to that city from the Amiens area, where some of the pieces most closely related to his activity were produced. His style, derived from the skills of the Master of d’Ailly, with whom he must have trained, has been linked to other important examples of manuscript illumination such as the “Hours of Thiébaut de Luxembourg”, now in Brussels (Koninklijke Bibliotheek België, Ms 9785), and the “Hours” created for the Le Rat family of Amiens, now in Baltimore (Walters Art Museum, Ms W. 262). These works, produced in the French city in the 1430s, also reveal the powerful influence of the Bedford Master as well as in-depth knowledge of Parisian illumination of the 1420s. Panel paintings have also been attributed to the Master of the Collins Hours on the basis of stylistic similarities, such as the “Priesthood of the Virgin” in the Musée du Louvre, painted around 1438 for the confraternity of Notre-Dame de Puy in Amiens, and the “Triptych with Scenes from the Life of Christ and Mary”, also called the “Corella Triptych”, in the Museo del Prado (P002538). These works attest to an extensive knowledge of the significant innovations in Netherlandish painting introduced by artists such as Jacques Daret (1401/3–1468/88), the Master of Flémalle and Jan van Eyck during the first half of the fifteenth century (J.J. Pérez Preciado, "Fifteenth-century netherlandish painting at the Museo Nacional del Prado. Catalogue raisonné", Museo del Prado, 2024, p. 213).