Thy Kingdom Come

ca. 1860-1900

Hand-illuminated on paper

20.3 x 12.7 cm. (mat); 10.3 x 5.6 cm. (illumination)

Beckwith, Victorian Bibliomania catalogue no. 60

Source: The Lord's Prayer

Collection: Anonymous lender

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This unique hand-illuminated Lord's Prayer came from a London tailor, according to the collector, historian and bookseller Robin de Beaumont. In format and design it is an excellent example of a whole cluster of works produced in Britain between the 1860s and the end of the century, when hand-illuminators heeded the call of Ruskin, Humphreys, De la Motte, and others for renewed devotion to this art. Men and women began painting single sheets and multiple-page illuminations of religious and secular texts. The form of many of the religious texts derived from medieval models, but this particular manuscript is more in keeping with the eclecticism seen in High Victorian architecture and printed illuminated works such as Ester Faithfull Fleet's Te Deum Laudamus (cat. 10). [continued below]