In some cases, we find that women learnt to be manuscript illuminators of great skill and artistic taste. For example Cornelia, the wife of Gérard David of Bruges[230], was, like her husband, both an illuminator of manuscripts and a painter of altar retables. A fine triptych painted by Cornelia, in the possession of Mr H. Willett of Brighton, is a work of great beauty and refinement, which it would be difficult to distinguish from a painting by Gérard David himself. _Costly gifts._ In the fifteenth century the commercial value of sumptuously illuminated manuscripts rose to the highest point. No object was thought more suited for a magnificent wedding present to a royal personage than a costly manuscript[231]. And large sums were often advanced by money-lenders or pawnbrokers on the security of a fine illuminated manuscript. [Illustration: Fig. 55. Picture by Quentin Matsys of Antwerp, showing a lady selling or pawning an illuminated manuscript.] _Painting by Matsys._ Fig. 55 shows a lady of the Bourgeois class negociating for the sale or pawn of a _Book of Hours_ or some such manuscript, illuminated with a full-page miniature of the Virgin and Child. The money-lender appears to be weighing out to her the money. This beautiful painting which is commonly called the "Money-changer and his wife" is signed and dated 1514 by Quentin Massys or Matsys of Antwerp. It is now in the Louvre. In the sixteenth century, especially in Italy, during the last decadence of the illuminator's art, very magnificent and costly manuscripts were produced by professional miniaturists, but these are merely monuments of wasted labour. Some account is given at page 202 of Giulio Clovio, the most skilful though tasteless miniaturist of his age. _Accounts of St George's, Windsor._ Mr J. W. Clark, the Registrary of the University of Cambridge, has procured and kindly allows me to print the following very interesting record of the cost of writing and illuminating certain manuscripts during the fourteenth century. The extract is taken from the manuscript records of the expenses of the Collegiate Church of St George at Windsor. The date is approximately given by the fact that John Prust was a Canon of Windsor from 1379 to 1385. "Compotus Johannis Prust de diuersis libris per eum factis videlicet j Antiphonarium, j Textus Evangelij, j Martilogium, iij Processionalia. In primis onerat se de x li. vj s. viij d. receptis de Ricardo Shawe per Indenturam. Item onerat se de xx s. receptis de corpore prebende Edmundi Clouille. Item onerat se de l s. receptis de dicto Edmundo pro officio suo videlicet Precentoris. Summa totalis receptorum xiij li. xvj s. viij d. In xix quaternionibus pergamenti vituli emptis pro libro Euangelij precio quaternionis viij d. xij s. viij d. Item solutum pro uno botello ad imponendum Incaustum x d.