Niavaran Palace exhibiting rare French manuscripts

Tehran-based Niavaran Cultural Historical Complex has been exhibiting folios of a rare French prayer book, dating back to the 16th century.

‘The Book of Hours of Louis of Orleans’ is a masterpiece decorated by a French master, Jean Colombe and the staff of his studio for Louis Duke of Orleans, the later King Louis XII.

The artists were guided by the work of the painter Jean Bourdichons, one of the most influential French illuminators of the Middle Ages.

Alongside several elegant miniatures, the pages of the work are adorned with elaborately decorated bordures with floral decorations, and images of birds, exotic animals, and fantastical monsters.

Parts of the manuscript feature aphorisms, which capture the themes of the prayers and miniatures.

Today, the splendid small codex is regarded as one of the most outstanding manuscripts to be produced during the French Renaissance. King Louis XII of France, a great lover and patron of the arts, signed the codex when he was still the Duke of Orleans.

The collection has been put on show at the library of the complex.

Constructed in the 19th and 20th centuries during the late Qajar and Pahlavi eras, the Niavaran Cultural Historical Complex encompasses several landmark buildings, museums, and monuments.

The palace was built as a summer residence over the then countryside area of the capital under the order of Fath-Ali Shah of the Qajar Dynasty some 280 years ago.

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