Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

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Lot 111
  • 111

Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin and Provençal, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands, first half of the fifteenth century]

Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description

  • Vellum
178 leaves, 125mm. by 85mm., wanting the initial leaf and single leaves after fols.10, 25, 86, 101, 105, and two leaves after fols.103 and 169 (missing leaves probably with miniatures), else complete, collation: i10 (of 12, wanting outer bifolium), ii9 (first a blank singleton), iii7 (first probably a singleton), iv-ix8, x12, xi7 (last a singleton), xii8, xiii4, xiv-xviii8, xix6, xx-xxi8, xxii6, xxiii4, xxiv1(once perhaps attached to previous quire), single column, 15 lines in dark brown ink in a late gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, numerous one- and 2-line initials in gold on blue and pink grounds with white penwork, seven large initials (3-line) in blue or pink on coloured and burnished gold grounds, with extensions into borders terminating in coloured and gold ivy leaves, that on fol.70v with a winged dragon snapping at two bezants, marks from pilgrim badges once attached to last leaf, slightly trimmed at edges with loss to some of border decoration, some scuffs and minor stains throughout, modern red leather over pasteboards, red cloth slipcase

Provenance

provenance

1. The decoration and script are southern Netherlandish and the Calendar singles out in red SS. Amatus, bishop of Maastricht (18 October) and his pupil Maurentius, first abbot of Breuil (5 May). However, the text includes entire sections in Provençal and must have been made for a southern French patron. St. Honoratus, perhaps the bishop of Arles, has been added to the Litany.

2. Borelut of Le Puy in Provence: a sixteenth-century ownership inscription on fol.25r.

3. Bergendal MS.64; bought by Joseph Pope in our rooms, 6 December 1983, lot 79: Bergendal catalogue no.64; Stoneman, 'Guide', p.191.

Catalogue Note

text

The volume comprises a Calendar (fol.1r); Gospel readings (fol.12r); Obsecro te and O intemerata (fol.17r); Office of the Virgin (fol.26r); Seven Penitential Psalms (fol.89r); a Litany (fol.98r); the Hours of the Cross and the Holy Spirit (fol.102r); the Office of the Dead (fol.106r); and a number of prayers. The last leaves have added prayers in a fifteenth- or sixteenth-century hand in Provençal.