The Visitation
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The Virgin Mary and her relation Elizabeth meet. Both are pregnant: Mary with Jesus and Elizabeth with St John the Baptist.
Mary is shown in blue, which can symbolise heaven. Bourdichon used Ultramarine pigment made from Lapis Lazuli from Afghanistan. Although a precious and expensive pigment, Bourdichon used it for cool flesh tones too. Gold was used to symbolise preciousness but also purity.
This miniature is a page from a royal prayerbook, the Hours of Louis XII, which was divided in the 1700s. The 16 surviving pages were brought together in 2005.
Gold leaf was used on the frontispiece but gold is used sparingly elsewhere, and here the shimmering folds on Mary and Elizabeth’s clothes could be granulated gold.