Illuminating is the art of illustrating or decorating text to make it more visually impressive.
Generally you see illuminating in manuscripts and the best examples tend to be dating between 1200 and 1700.
A lot of time and effort goes into illuminating text and thus these works all command a high price.
Take Loftie's 'The Art Of Illuminating' for example.
I have twice sold this late Victorian book for £49.99 purely due to the great beauty of the illuminated plates inside:
With illuminated books the covers do not matter as much as the inside.
Usually illuminating will involve bright colours and often gilding to make the letters stand out.
One of the most famous and readily available illuminated texts is 'The Sermon On The Mount', popular for it's beauty and extreme illumination.
You can also get black and white and less extravagant illuminating such as seen below in 'Smith of Wootton Major' by Tolkien.
Yet for purists the illuminated manuscripts of 1300-1700 are the most valuable.
These will often be only a few pages (or even just a single page), often made of vellum so the page is rigid.
These can often be hand-drawn and may be one-of-a-kind hence the huge sums such items sell for.
An Illuminated bible dating circa 1200's sold on eBay for £7,000 so there is big money in the larger, older examples.
Regardless of costs, illuminating is a lost art and holds great artistic value in the freedom given to artists for such pieces.
Thanks for reading.
The above photo comes from Abebooks.co.uk which you can access from the following link:
