Prie-dieu, or Kneeler for praying. Seventeenth century, Italian.

Gertrude Hill Gavin, the youngest daughter of St. Paul railroad magnate James J. Hill, was a devout and active member of the Catholic Church. During the 1920s, she served as president of the National Council of Catholic Women. The Hill Museum & Manuscript Library has been generously supported by members of the Hill family, particularly grandson Jerome J. Hill, for whom the library is named. Descendents of Gertrude Gavin recently donated several of her illuminated manuscripts, and late seventeenth-century Italian prie-dieu, or kneeler, to the library. A Gavin Book of Hours is pictured atop the prie-dieu.