Leaf from a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum, [Southern Netherlands, 14th century]

Property from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Leaf from a Book of Hours

Illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum. [Southern Netherlands, 14th century (last quarter)]

Single leaf, c.195×150mm; 22 lines (c.135×82mm); the text comprising the end of Terce (with the Hours of the Cross intermixed) and start of Sext from the Hours of the Virgin; illuminated with a large 6-line foliate initial from which spring foliate borders; 3-line illuminated initials to psalms. A little rubbed, and the corners stained, but still an attractive and very unusual leaf.

Illuminated in a very unusual style, with five-petalled flowers in blue, red, or yellow.

PROVENANCE:

The parent manuscript has not been identified. Other leaves were offered by Philip Duschnes, Catalogue 42 nos. 32–33 (ill.) (attributed to England and dated 1390), one of which contained the beginning of a very unusual text: the ‘Hours of the Contemplation the Blessed Mary on the Passion of the Lord’ (probably the same as the Hours of the Compassion of the Virgin), carrying an indulgence of 45 years and 40 days. From the same manuscript as lot 17

Otto Ege/Philip Duschnes

Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Gallery Purchase, 1940 (1940:355.8)