France, Paris, c 1335–45. State Library of Victoria, RARES F 096. 1 R66A, fols. 294v–295 (cat no 25).

This choir book was made for the nuns of St Louis de Poissy near Paris, a Dominican monastery founded by King Philip IV in 1304 in honour of his grandfather, St Louis IX. He also provided the community with liturgical books. The style of this book’s 23 historiated initials, which mark important feasts, its elegant ivy-leaf borders and finely flourished filigree initials associate it with the late work of the Master Parisian illuminator Jean Pucelle, whose atelier continued after his death (1334). The depiction of St Dominic being conducted up a ladder to heaven by angels (folio 294v), though rare elsewhere in France, appears in several manuscripts made for Poissy.