Excellence - Expertise - Experience and a vision for the future of art collecting

Sandra Hindman is a leading expert on Medieval and Renaissance manuscript illumination. Professor Emerita of Art History at Northwestern University and Owner of Les Enluminures, Paris, Chicago and New York, Professor Hindman is author, coauthor, or editor of more than ten books, as well as numerous articles on the history and reception of illuminated manuscripts and on medieval rings.

On the occasion of its 30th anniversary since opening the first gallery in 1991 in the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris, Sandra Hindman and her team are launching a series of six videos, illustrating the fascination and work behind the dealing with the most remarkable illuminated manuscripts.

30 years ago, I opened my gallery in the Louvre des Antiquaires in Paris. What a perfect place, next door to the Louvre, on three floors with over 250 dealers in all fields.
"Les Enluminures", that’s what I called my business. I wanted a name that could be a brand, that would stand for something; it means “illuminations”. To this day many people don’t know who Sandra Hindman is but they know "Les Enluminures".

From the start we published scholarly catalogues, the Getty Museum bought the Italian miniature of my very first catalogue.
I sold nothing at my very first art show in Paris. But three years later, someone contacted me out of the blue. “I earned some knowledge at this show” they explained. He sold me an important miniature, that hung for years outside the Director’s office at the Cleveland Museum of Art.
Excellence, expertise, experience. From the start, that’s what I strove for.
Less is more if it means the very best.

For thirty years, Les Enluminures has forged and upholds relationships with the world’s most prestigious public and private collections. International clients include the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the British Library, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, among many others. The gallery has exhibited in most major international art fairs and maintains an extensive publication cycle.

The videos are being released over the coming weeks and can be found under the following link on the LES ENLUMINURES website.

Besides running galleries in Paris, Chicago and New York, Sandra and her team are overseeing a large number of projects.

Exhibitions at international art and antique fairs such as TEFAF Maastricht, Frieze Masters in London or the New York Winter Antiques Show, lead the firm to projects such as the one below, "The Roman de la Rose", perhaps the greatest love story in French literature, a poem written in Old French around 1230 initially by Guillaume de Lorris.
As Sandra Hindman tells the viewers in the video below: "The Lover falls asleep and dreams of finding his love, symbolized by the Rose. On his quest he encounters many personifications—Jealousy, Desire, Hate, Old Age. But not the Rose. Alas he suddenly wakes up, bereft, dejected, lovelorn."

Les Enluminures was founded in Paris in 1991 by Dr. Sandra Hindman in association with the Chicago-based business, and it has opened a new gallery in New York in May 2012. Specializing in manuscripts and miniatures from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the gallery also handles rings and jewelry from the same periods. It organizes four or five exhibitions a year, some in collaboration with other dealers and some traveling to other locations, and these are often accompanied by catalogues.