With 1250 elaborate medallions, 38 large-scale miniatures, all decorated with gold leaf, brush gold and frequently also with silver, this work is one of the most precious manuscripts of its period.

"The Bedford Hours", one of the most sumptuous Books of Hours ever to have left an illuminator's workshop, is today one of the British Library's greatest treasures. With 1250 elaborate medallions, 38 large-scale miniatures, all decorated with gold leaf, brush gold and frequently also with silver, "The Bedford Hours" is one of the most precious manuscripts of its period. The artist behind the manuscript, known as the Bedford Master, was among the most prolific painters of his day but his identity has remained a mystery. Eberhard Konig's engrossing account is a tale which unfolds toward a number of startlingly original and unexpected conclusions, the key one being that it is extremely likely that he was Haincelin of Haguenau, an artist who had become enlumineur (illuminator) to the dauphin Louis de Guyenne. Louis was associated with a considerable number of major illuminated manuscripts in which the Bedford Master had a hand. Professor Konig has disentangled the sequence of work by extraordinary detective work into the smallest of clues and demonstrates how a medieval masterpiece was actually made.