Chester Beatty's collection of bindings from eighteenth-century Europe includes many virtuoso examples. This binding, identified as the work of Edward Beatty, formerly known only as Parliamentary Binder B, is one of the most important Irish bindings to survive from this period. T
A Sense of Place | Arts | Bookbinding
Image
This magnificent Book of Hours (Use of Paris) was executed for Prigent de Coëtivy (1400-50), who was Admiral of France and, next to the Duc de Berry, one of the greatest book-collectors of the period. The 148 miniatures are mainly attributed to the 'Master of the Duke of Be
A Sense of Freedom | Coëtivy, Prignet de, 1400-1450 | Illumination of books and manuscripts
Image
In twenty scenes, this painted handscroll tells the Tale of Oriole (Yingying zhuan), one of the the most famous love stories in Chinese literature. Set in the late eighth century, it centers around the romance of Oriole (Yingying), the beautiful seventeen-year old daughter
A Sense of Freedom | Arts | Love stories
Image
Scenes of royal life were a popular subject for depiction in parabaik folding books at the Burmese court of Mandalay during the late nineteenth century. These openings show the training of hunting elephants and other mounted exercises.
A Sense of Identity | Courts and courtiers | Animals
Image
The historiated initial ‘I’ marks the beginning of the Book of Genesis: In Principio creavit Deus caelum et terram, or ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’. Each line of text is written in decreasing size, a decorative technique known as diminuendo. The
A Sense of Place | Creation | Biblical cosmology
Image
This folio from a vellum codex contains the Coptic version in the Sahidic dialect of a collection of rules relating to church discipline ascribed to St Basil. Basil the Great (born c.300), bishop of Caesarea, was an important early theologian as well as one of the fathers of comm
A Sense of Identity | Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea, approximately 329-379 | Religion
Image
The Chester Beatty papyrus codex of the Pauline Epistles is the earliest book of Paul’s letters in existence. The original manuscript would have consisted of 100-104 leaves, of which 86 survive, split between the Chester Beatty and the University of Michigan. The codex was formed
A Sense of Identity | Saint, Paul | Bible
Image
In 1765, the Qianlong emperor (r. 1736-95) commanded Jesuit artists residing at his court to design pictures commemorating recent military conquests of foreign territory. Shortly thereafter, a set of sixteen drawings of these battles was sent to the Parisian engraver Charles Coc
A Sense of Place | History | Wars
Image
The woodblock print designer Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) is one of Japan’s most celebrated artists. During a hugely productive artistic career, he created an astonishing range of works, including prints of beautiful women, landscapes, flowers and animals, as well as illustrat
A Sense of Place | Religion | Fuji, Mount (Japan)
Image
This painted scroll of Scenes from a Noh Play (Manzai no Tsutsumi emaki) dates to the Edo period and was created during the middle of the seventeenth century. Noh is a fourteenth-century form of theatre originally patronised by Japan’s samurai warrior class. It became a court en
A Sense of Identity | Arts | Theatre
Image
Western knowledge of many works of the greatest thinkers of ancient Greece, including Euclid, was lost during the so-called Dark Ages (the period from about the late fifth century AD to the year 1000). However, between the late eighth century and the tenth centuries, most o
A Sense of Freedom | Mathematics | Geometry
Image
This folio is from an album compiled for the Mughal emperors Jahangir (r. 1605-27) and Shah Jahan (r. 1627-58) between about 1612 and 1640. In his memoirs, Jahangir, whose mother was Hindu, describes Holi, the exuberant Hindu festival: ‘Thursday is the Holi, which in their
A Sense of Place | Manners and customs | Religion
Image