Book of Hours, Use of Paris, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum

Estimate

30,000 - 50,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

72 leaves (one blank), 243mm. by 169mm., lacking 2 leaves after fol.18, else complete, collation: i^{7 [last blank, viii cancelled], ii^{8, iii^{6 [of 8, lacking iv-v], iv-ix^{8, x^{3 [of unknown number, blanks after iii cancelled], with horizontal catchwords, 23 lines, double column, ruled in black ink, written-space 147mm. by 104mm., written in dark brown ink in a very fine compressed gothic liturgical hand, rubrics (in French) in red, some capitals touched in yellow,}}}}} richly illuminated throughout, line-fillers and one-line initials in burnished gold on red and blue grounds with white tracery, 2- to 4-line initials throughout (usually at least one and often several to a page) in very fine leafy and floral designs in blue, orange and red with white heightening on highly burnished gold grounds with marginal borders of coloured and burnished gold ivyleaves sometimes extending into upper or lower margins, three large miniatures, column width, 8 lines high, with full-length ivyleaf borders, a few negligible stains and slight thumbing, generally in extremely fine fresh condition with very wide margins, sometimes with the prickings present, mid-sixteenth-century Parisian blind-stamped brown calf over pasteboards, roll-tooled floral border, central compartments with arabesque pattern in a circle within a lozenge all infilled with lattice design enclosing multiple impressions of floral tools and the letters ‘V’ and ‘F’, gilt edges, lacking 2 pairs of ties, binding skilfully repaired, paper endleaves replaced

Provenance

provenance

(1) The text is of the Use of Paris throughout, although the Calendar also singles out in red Saint Ursinus, bishop of Bourges (29 December). It may be worth noting that the Duc de Berry and his household were domiciled principally in Bourges.

(2) The initials ‘V’ and ‘F’ on the binding of about 1550 may suggest a husband and wife. There is a seventeenth-century name ‘Durobin’ added several times on fol.1r.

(3) Armorial bookplate, c.1900, of the O’Kelly family, of Co. Armagh, Northern Ireland.

(4) Mrs Nadine Wesley Smith; her sale in these rooms, 6 December 1954, lot 15, acquired by the father of the present owner.

Catalogue Note

text

A Calendar (fol.1r), in Latin, including astronomical information and the liberation of Jerusalem (15 July); the Hours of the Virgin [Use of Paris], with Matins (fol.8r), Lauds (fol.18r), Prime (fol.20v), Terce (fol.23v), Sext (fol.25v), None (fol.27r), Vespers (fol.29r) and Compline (fol.31v); the Penitential Psalms (fol.34r) and Litany, including among the Parisian saints invocations of SS. Anianus (bishop of Orléans) and Turiavus (bishop of Dol); the Office of the Dead [Use of Paris], with Vespers (fol.42v), Matins (fol.46r) and Lauds (fol.58v); the Commendation of the Dead (fol.64v, a rare text, beginning “Subvenite sancti dei …”); and the Obsecro te (fol.69r) and O intemerata (fol.70v), both for male use.

illumination

Although sparingly illustrated, this is a princely manuscript of very high quality throughout. The use of two columns for a Book of Hours is extremely rare at this period, resembling a Breviary or a Missal, and is almost unique to the patronage of the Duc de Berry and his family, for it is the format of the Belles Heures, the Grandes Heures and the Très Riches Heures. The Duc may have understood an allusion to the almost priestly status of the French royal house, even though a Book of Hours is a layman’s text. The three fine miniatures are securely attributable to the Virgil Master, the court artist named after a Virgil in Florence (Bibl. Laurentiana, cod. Med.Pal. 69), completed in 1403 for Jacques Courau, treasurer and maître d’hôtel of the Duc de Berry. The Duc himself owned at least six manuscripts illuminated by the Virgil Master, including a Livy and two illustrated Bibles historiales. The Virgil Master apparently knew and had access to the working drawings of the Limbourg brothers (cf. F. Avril in Paris 1400, Les arts sous Charles VI, 2004, pp.262-3 and 187-8), who were then almost certainly in Bourges. The Virgil Master also painted the Alchandreus manuscript which was lot 8 in the Seilern sale at Christie’s, 26 March 2003, and is now J. Paul Getty Museum MS.72. For the artist, cf. M. Meiss, The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries, 1974, esp. pp.408-12; Paris 1400, as above; and N. Morgan in The Cambridge Illuminations, ed. P. Binski and S. Panayotova, 2005, pp.200-02, nos.86-7.

The miniatures are:

1. Folio 8r, The Nativity, 50mm. by 45mm., the Virgin lying full-length on a red bed suckling the Child whom she cradles in the fold of her robe, Joseph hunched up watching a pot boiling on a campfire, the ox and ass on the right, all set within a wickerwork enclosure.

2. Folio 34r, God the Father enthroned, 50mm. by 44mm., God seated on a throne draped in red (presumably in judgement, for these are the Penitential Psalms), one hand raised in blessing, the other holding the orb; tessellated background.

3. Folio 42v, A funeral service, 51mm. by 44mm., a bier in the foreground draped in blue between four candlesticks, two priests singing from a lectern on the left and three hooded mourners standing on the right; tessellated background.