Fencing Bear at Prayer

Bear on her way to the NAC in Atlanta... click to enlarge With thanks to the Austin Lounge Lizards for the hum.

What does it mean to own something, say, a beautiful book? Perhaps a book like this one. It's possible, you know. Maybe not this book exactly*--as far as I know, the university is not planning on auctioning off its collection--but one very like it. Hundreds almost exactly the same survive from the workshops of fifteenth-century Bruges. You might even be able to find one illuminated by the very same master ( Willem Vrelant ) or, if not the master, perhaps (like this one) one of his assistants. The library probably paid something along the lines of $3000 when it purchased this book back in the early 20th century.** Now you'd more likely be looking at something starting around 40,000 Euros , if you were lucky and nobody else bid. Would you want one? Myself, I don't know. It would be a terrible responsibility, after all. These books are hundreds and hundreds of years old, containing some of the most beautiful paintings produced in their time and exhibiting a level of c...