The Rothschild Prayer book

NEW YORK (AP) — A Renaissance prayer book has sold for $13.6 million,
just short of the auction record set 15 years ago for an illuminated manuscript.

Christie’s auction house says the Rothschild Prayer book was purchased
Wednesday by a private collector bidding by telephone.

The ornately illustrated Book of Hours sold in 1999 at Christie’s London for
$13.4 million to a European collector.

It was commissioned around 1505 by a member of the imperial court of the
Netherlands. It entered the Rothschild family collection in the 19th century.

The 150-page book features full-page color drawings, called miniatures, by
leading masters of illumination.

The manuscript was part of a collection of Nazi-confiscated treasures that
was returned to the Rothschild banking dynasty by the Austrian government
in 1999.