William de Brailes was at the forefront of a great artistic
flourishing in 13th-century England. One of the very few
illuminators to sign his work, his name appears in several
records between c.1230 and 1260, making him the best-documented
artist of the period. Little is known of his personal life other
than that he lived and worked in Oxford and that he had a wife –
a fact somewhat at odds with two portraits of himself in a
tonsure, which would suggest he had taken monastical vows. De
Brailes’s consummate skill as an artist and craftsman is
evidenced in seven leaves that survive from a Psalter completed
around 1240. Regarded as the finest examples of his work, six of
the leaves belong to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge and the
seventh to the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York. The Folio
Society is proud to announce the publication of a limited
facsimile edition of all seven Leaves from a Psalter by William
de Brailes. These are no ordinary reproductions – the leaves are
restored to their original glory