The Challon Psalter-Hours, Use of Rouen, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris (or perhaps Rouen), c.1260-70]

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

200 leaves (plus 2 medieval flyleaves), 140mm. by 95mm., a leaf or so wanting from end, else complete, collation: i^{6, ii^{4, iii^{14, iv-ix^{16, x^{14, xi-xii^{14, xiii^{18, xiv^{12, xv^{4, 20 lines in black ink in a professional early gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, psalm titles usually in gold, one-line initials in blue with red penwork or gold with blue penwork, 2-line initials in gold on red and blue grounds heightened with white tracery and dots, Psalm 2 with a 3-line initial in same with coloured and gold extensions into border forming a partial text frame on one side,}}}}}}}}} ten large historiated initials (6- to 11-line) each with a partial or full border of foliage and animals, line-fillers in blue and red with gold bezants (usually formed of an animal with a long, worm-like body biting a gold bezant), trimmed at edges with some affect to borders and Calendar text, some stains, scuffs and discolouration through oxidisation, else good to fair condition, seventeenth-century leather over pasteboards incorporating a small fragment of a fifteenth-century manuscript

Provenance

A notably early Psalter-Hours made for a woman, illuminated by artists who worked for the royal court of Louis IX

provenance

1. Written and illuminated in Paris, most probably for the woman in the initial on fol.188r, who doubtless lived in Rouen (dedication of cathedral there on 1 October in Calendar, as well as the translation of the relics of the cathedral on 3 December).

2. Additions of the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries show that the manuscript passed through a number of owners who made additions to the Calendar, some indicating that it was in the Bouches-du-Rhône region in southern France (SS. Pontius of Cimiez for 11 May; Lazarus of Marseilles for 31 August; and Castor of Apt for 24 September).

3. Barthellemy Challon: his late sixteenth- or seventeenth-century inscription on front flyleaf.

4. Anatole Claudin (1833-1906), French bookseller, his Cat.206 (1884), no.85150, with a clipping from this catalogue pasted to front pastedown; sold to London bookseller, J. Mozley Stark.

5. Oliver R. Barrett (1873-1950) and his son, Roger W. Barrett (1915-2010), of Kenilworth, Illinois: de Ricci, Census I, 1935, p.674, no.3; sold in our rooms, 16 May 1955, lot 85 (with clipping loosely inserted), to Maggs.

6. Harry Walton (d.2007) of Covington, Virginia: his stamp 'A544' in purple ink on front pastedown; Supplement, pp.518-19.

Catalogue Note

text

The volume comprises: a Calendar (fol.1r); the table of the Psalms (fol.7r), followed by Psalms 1-150 (fol.11r), and the six ferial Canticles (fol.164v) followed by Benedicite, Benedictus, Te Deum, Quicumque vult, Nunc dimittis, the Magnificat and Gloria in excelsis; a Litany (fol.178v); the Office of the Dead (fol.181v); and the Hours of the Virgin (fol.188r) of a previously unrecorded use (presumably a very early Use of Rouen), followed by suffrages to a number of saints. The inclusion of this last text places the manuscript among the oldest Books of Hours in existence.

illumination

The richly illuminated initials and borders in this manuscript are notably close to that of the so-called 'Royal-Psalter' style employed by a group of artists in the production of two of the finest thirteenth-century French manuscripts: the Psalter of King Louis IX (BnF. latin 10525; H. Stahl, Picturing Kingship: history and painting in the Psalter of Saint Louis, 2008) and the Psalter of his sister Isabelle of France (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS.300; Panayotova and Binski, The Cambridge Illuminations, pp.178-80), which date between the mid-1250s and 1270 (Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis, 1977, pp.132-37).

The initials comprise:

1. fol.11r, Psalm 1: King David, enthroned and with crossed legs; the border with dragons and a peacock.

2. fol.35r, Psalm 2: King David being crowned by Christ, with Samuel in attendance; the border with a huntsman blowing a horn, a dog chasing a rabbit and various drolleries.

3. fol.50r, Psalm 38: King David pointing to his mouth, addressed by a devil; the border with dragons and birds.

4. fol.64r, Psalm 51: King David addressing a soldier (perhaps Goliath), who holds a shield: party per fess gules and argent, three crescents sable, two and one; the border with battling drollery creatures and a seated dog.

5. fol.65r, Psalm 52: King David addressing a Fool, who holds a club and a loaf; the border with two men fighting, squirrels and a drollery creature.

6. fol.79v, Psalm 68: King David naked in water and appealing to God above; a bird and a drollery in the marginal extensions.

7. fol.97v, Psalm 80: King David playing a carillon of six bells with two hammers.

8. fol.114r, Psalm 97: three clerics singing from a choirbook.

9. fol.129v, Psalm 109: The Trinity.

10. fol.188r: the Virgin and Child enthroned, with a kneeling female patron.