Book of Hours, of unidentified Use, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [French Flanders or Hainaut, c.1460-80]

100 leaves (plus 2 modern paper endleaves at front and back), 149mm. by 103mm, wanting one leaf after fol.73, else apparently complete, 15 lines in brown ink in a gothic bookhand (written space: 94mm. by 63mm.), capitals touched in yellow, rubrics in red, one-line initials in red or blue, 2-line initials in gold on light pink and blue grounds with white penwork, 4- to 5-line initials in pink or blue on contrasting grounds, enclosing coloured ivy leaves on burnished gold, accompanied by full borders of coloured acanthus, flowers, gold ivy leaves and bezants, three full-page miniatures (fols.7v, 12v and 58v, all bound in on singletons) with full borders as before, miniatures and borders rubbed, pages with marks from pilgrim badges (badges now removed), last two leaves cockled, nineteenth-century gold-tooled green morocco over pasteboards, in a fitted green leather case by Stikeman & Co. of New York  

1. Evidently made in French Flanders or Hainaut, c.1460-80. The use is unrecorded (Prime with antiphon “Assumpta est …” and chapter “Hec est virgo …”; None with antiphon “Pulcra es …” and chapter “Ego mater pulcre …”), but another Book of Hours also of unidentified use but perhaps produced in Hainaut (now Carpentras, Bibl. Mun., ms.78) partly agrees with the use here, with the single exception of the antiphon for None which has “Benedicta filia tua …” instead; see D. Van Wijnsberghe, Ung bon ouvrier nommé Marquet Caussin, 2013, p.299, 317 n.82, figs.346-8. The Calendar in French appears to have been added to the book soon after its production, and includes St. Genevieve (3 January) suggesting that the recipient lived close to Paris, perhaps on the French-Flemish border.

2. D.J. Verstierme Ruegiers: his nineteenth-century ex libris on fol.1r.

text

The manuscript comprises: a Calendar (fol.1r); the Hours of the Cross (fol.8r); the Hours of the Virgin with Matins (fol.13r), Lauds (fol.22v), Prime (fol.32v), Terce (fol.37r), Sext (fol.40r), None (fol.43v), Vespers (fol.46v), Compline (fol.53r); the Hours of the Holy Spirit (fol.57r); the Penitential Psalms (fol.59r) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead (fol.74r, wanting miniature); and added prayer in a contemporary hand (fol.99r).