Season’s Greetings
As we prepare to close (as of December 24th) for the Williams winter break, the staffs of the Chapin Library and College Archives send you Season’s Greetings and best wishes for the new year.
Shown is a miniature depicting the Annunciation to the Shepherds, from a book of hours, second half of the 15th century, executed probably in Ghent or Bruges. Books of hours were personal books for Christian devotion, often owned by women and given them when they wed. This manuscript was itself a wedding gift to a 15th-century bride, and contains added prayers at the end. Much later, it was purchased by Alfred Clark Chapin, Williams Class of 1869, as a gift to his wife, and ultimately came to the Chapin Library, where it is the finest of several books of hours, both manuscript and printed. – WGH