Around the year 1400, French culture was concentrated in Paris: artists, patrons and dealers flocked to. the French capital, producing a marvellous flowering of art. One of the greatest artists working at that time is known to us as the Master of the Hours of the Marechal de Boucicaut. His work, and especially his illustrations for the Book of Hours, was outstanding at the beginning of the 15th century in France and in the whole of Europe, including Italy. Scholars, since 1889, have recognized the exceptional quality of the Boucicaut Hours. In the early years of this century, Paul Durrieu acknowledged the Master of the Boucicaut Hours as pre-eminent in France, and since then he has begun to attract more attention. Erwin Panofsky in 1953 described him as 'the great pioneer of naturalism' in the representation of landscape and interiors, and in aerial perspective. He has now assumed a place alongside the Limbourg brothers in all accounts of late mediaeval painting and as a precursor of Jan van Eyck. In this book Professor Meiss presents for the first time a comprehensive and detailed study of the Boucicaut Master and his work. By penetrating and ingenious analysis, the author supports the suggestion that the Master is identifiable with a painter from Bruges, Jacques Coene. He establishes the artist's oeuvre and examines in great depth and detail all the manuscripts either completely or partly by the Boucicaut Master. Professor Meiss's astonishing awareness of stylistic distinctions enables the student to understand fully the nature and development of the artist himself, his associates and his workshop. There are nearly 500 illustrations, 14 of them in colour, to complement the160 pages of text. The miniatures of the Boucicaut Hours are reproduced here in their entirety for the first time, while other important manuscripts in Paris, London, New York, Baltimore, Lucca and Seville, among others, are shown by many full-page -miniatures and a wealth of further examples offering a rich and comprehensive selection.