| Taking the female manuscript-owner portrait in late medieval Books of Hours as its topic, this thesis investigates the meaning and function of the owner figure as an active self-reflexive character in the manuscript illuminations. Drawing upon illuminations in women-owned manuscripts in the Walters Art Museum collection and referencing similar published manuscript illuminations in other collections, the thesis explores the relationship of the owner with her representational self as a surrogate presence, the model to which she aspires, with the book as an alternate space into which she might project her spiritual, mental and emotional energies in the interest of forming her feminine religious identity. It considers internal and external models set forth in the Book of Hours, and in view of the private performative nature of the devotions, speculates on the possibility of a resistant subjective reading by noble laywomen. |
