Ugly Duckling

[Mark Knowles]

Or maybe they were just sufficiently rich to be able to afford parchment.

But possibly not enough to afford competent illustrators/painters.

I don't think with the painting it is really just a question of competency. I think often it looks like a lack of effort as though in some cases the quality of the illustrations was not that important. I have no artistic ability or experience and yet in some instances I think I could have done a better job than the Voynich painter(s) just by being careful and paying more attention to detail. There is an kind of laziness to some of the illustrations and maybe that was ok as the work was intended to be functionally useful rather than visually appealing. Some of the painting looks kind of like a rushed job.

Also, even if the author(s) could afford to pay professional illustrators they may have been reluctant to do so as that would mean introducing more people to their possibly intended to be secret private manuscript.