Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

185 leaves (last blank), 95 mm. by 71 mm., text complete, lacking any full-page miniatures once inserted on single sheets, collation: i-ii^{6, iii-xiv8, xv2, xvi-xxiv8, xxv3 [of 4, blank iv cancelled], 14 lines, ruled in red ink, written-space 57 mm. by 40 mm., written in dark brown ink in a small gothic liturgical hand, rubrics in red, capitals touched in yellow, versal initials throughout alternately blue or burnished gold with penwork in red or black, 2-line initials in burnished gold on red and blue grounds with white tracery}, thirteen large initials with full borders, the initials 4 lines high (one 5-line) in leafy designs in colours and burnished gold supporting 3-sided bar baguettes with full borders of coloured flowers and acanthus leaves infilled with tiny gold bezants on black hairline sprays, an initial cut out from fol. 7r (replaced with blank vellum), slight smudge in border on fol. 40r, margins cut fairly close with loss of edges of some upper and outer borders, occasional spots of wear, generally in good state, bound in late eighteenth-century [presumably Scottish] blind-stamped calf, title gilt, brown silk marker, edges gilt and gauffered

provenance

(1) The Calendar and Litany are very general but both include Saint Donatus, patron of Ghent.   The inscription at the end "Marci de pietz de pisanno, 1451" may suggest that it was bought by a Pisan merchant in the Netherlands.

(2) Alexander Boswell (1707-1782), judge, of Auchinleck House, in East Ayrshire, Scotland, with his signature, dated at Brussels, 1729.  Boswell had studied law at Leiden University.  The manuscript descended to his son, James Boswell (1740-1795), the biographer of Johnson, and through the family to James Boswell Talbot (1874-1948), sixth Baron Talbot of Malahide, at Malahide Castle, near Dublin, and sold privately in 1976 by Lady Talbot to a collector, from whom it passed by descent to the present owner

Condition is described in the main body of the cataloguing where appropriate
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

text

A Calendar (fol. 1r); the Hours of the Cross (fol. 13r) and of the Holy Ghost (fol. 20r); the Mass of the Virgin (fol. 26r), including the Gospel Sequences; the Hours of the Virgin "secundum consuetudinem romane ecclesie", with Matins (fol. 40r), Lauds (fol. 62r), Prime (fol. 75r), Terce (fol. 80r), Sext (fol. 85r), None (fol. 90r), Vespers (fol. 95r) and Compline (fol. 104r); the Penitential Psalms (fol. 111r) and Litany; and the Office of the Dead (fol. 135r).