( fl Normandy, c. 1430–60). Illuminator. The Master takes his name from two manuscripts commissioned by John Talbot, 1st Earl of Shrewsbury, one of the English army leaders in France during the final stages of the Hundred Years War (1337–1453). The Shrewsbury Book (London, BL, Royal MS. 15. E. VI), a collection of romances and didactic texts, was presented by Talbot to Margaret of Anjou, almost certainly as she passed through Rouen in 1445 on her way to marry the English king Henry VI. The finest miniatures, including two with representations of Talbot himself, are best taken as the basis for the style of the Talbot Master, since they are of higher quality than any in the other manuscript, a Book of Hours (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam, MS. 40–1950), which probably dates to within ten years of the Earl’s marriage to Margaret Beauchamp in 1425.

Part of the Masters, anonymous, and monogrammists family