Jarry, Nicolas

12mo (5 x 3 1/8 in.; 127 x 80 mm). Two blank leaves, title-page, 138 pages, three final blank leaves. Manuscript on vellum in French and Latin, written and signed by Nicolas Jarry in roman and italic scripts, eighteen lines, recto and verso, title in gold capitals within a gold border, seven headings of floral ornament and seven initials similarly decorated, each page written within gold line-borders, headings in gold, blue or red capitals. Nineteenth-century black shagreen, two gilt clasps and catches with a large decorative cypher of the letters EDO surmounted by a coronet; joints and clasps fragile; slip-case. 

Lord Kenyon (morocco armorial bookplate on inside first endpaper and on case) — Unidentified crowned cypher "EDO" on clasps — Ursule Marie Aline Bouniols-Bonafons (ex-dono on first blank) — Mortiner L. Schiff (bookplate; Sotheby's New York, 24 March, 1938, lot 249) — Unidentified bookplate with initials DP — Sotheby's London, Western and Oriental Manuscripts, 26 January 1959, lot 63. acquisition: Probably purchased at the foregoing sale through Bernard Quaritch 

Not in Portalis.

Charming prayer book typical of the small-format manuscripts produced for Louis XIV and his courtiers by Nicolas Jarry (circa 1615-70), the foremost French calligrapher of the period. The floral decoration is in the style of the botanical painter Nicolas Robert, who collaborated on Jarry's most celebrated work, La Guirlande de Julie.