Gerard Horenbout or Gerard Hourenbout () was a Flemish miniaturist, a late example of the miniature tradition in Early Netherlandish painting. He is "likely and widely accepted" to be the Master of James IV of Scotland, a leading miniaturist of the period, responsible for the Spinola Hours and other major projects of the last flowering of the Flemish miniature tradition.Scot McKendrick. "Reviving the Past," in Illuminating the Renaissance: The Flemish Triumph of Manuscript Painting in Europe. Getty Publications; 1 July 2003. . pp. 411-413, 428
Biography Horenbout lived and worked in Ghent and is best known as a manuscript illustrator. He also made stained glass, tapestries, embroidery designs, ironworks and panel painting. First mentioned in 1487, when he joined the painters Guild of Saint Luke.Susan E. James. The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485-1603: Women As Consumers, Patrons and Painters. Ashgate Publishing Company; 2009. . p. 242. He was married to Margaret Svanders soon after joining the guild. They had six children, two of whom were the artists Lucas Horenbout and Susanna Hornebolt. There were also sons Eloy and Joris. Lucas, Susanna and at least one more of his sons were trained by Horenbout to be painters.
He had at least two apprentices, one in 1498, and one in 1502. In 1515, he was made painter to Archduchess Margaret of Austria, and also briefly worked at the court of Henry VIII in England. He was visited by Albrecht Dürer in 1521, when Dürer bought an illustrated manuscript made by his daughter Susanna Horenbout. His son Lucas Horenbout was also a well-known painter.
His wife, Margaret Svanders, or van Saunders, died in 1529Kathy Lynn Emerson, . Troy, NY: Whitston, 1984. p. 113.James Thorne. Handbook to the Environs of London: Alphabetically Arranged, Containing an Account of Every Town and Village, and of All Places of Interest, Within a Circle of Twenty Miles Round London. John Murray; 1876. p. 220. and he made the brass plaque found at All Saints' Church in Fulham, London.Susan E. James. The Feminine Dynamic in English Art, 1485-1603: Women As Consumers, Patrons and Painters. Ashgate Publishing Company; 2009. . pp. 242-243.
He died about 1540 or 1541.
Works Miniatures in the Breviary of Eleanor of Portugal, ca. 1500 Miniatures in the Hours of James IV of Scotland, between 1502 and 1503 16 miniatures in the Sforza Hours for Archduchess Margaret of Austria, between 1517 and 1520 (now in the British Library) Miniatures in the Grimani Breviary, before 1520 Portraits of Lieven Van Pottelsberghe and Livina Van Steelant, c. 1525, in the Museum of Fine Arts, Ghent
Major works attributed to the Master of James IV of Scotland include the Spinola Hours in the Getty Museum, "the most pictorially ambitious and original sixteenth-century Flemish manuscript",Kren & S McKendrick, 414, who also catalogue the Grimani Breviary and Vatican Hours. the Grimani Breviary in Venice, the Holford Hours in Lisbon (1526, probably his last work), the "Rothschild Prayerbook" (or "Hours"), the "Vatican Hours" and two detached miniatures in the Cloisters Museum.Image and commentary, the other of the pair On large projects he often collaborated with other masters.Kren & S McKendrick, 418-426 For example, in the Mayer van den Bergh Breviary, he was one of at least 12 artists who contributed to the decoration.
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References
Sources T Kren & S McKendrick (eds), Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, Getty Museum/Royal Academy of Arts, 2003,