St Michael weighing souls, miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Châlons?), c.1480]

single leaf, c.145x100mm, vellum, with a miniature for the suffrage of St Michael, 14 lines (c.65×53mm), recto with a two-line initial including a man's head and a partial border, f.29 in the parent manuscript, slightly rubbed, cropped close to the outer border

 

FROM A MANUSCRIPT PAINTED IN A VERY FINE BUT UNSTUDIED STYLE, WITH RICH BORDERS INCLUDING COLOURFUL BIRDS SET WITHIN SPATIALLY ARRANGED BRANCHES OF FLOWERS

(1) Perhaps made in Châlons-en-Champagne, to judge by the text of the Office of the Dead, but no other works by the artist are known. The manuscript had an image of the male patron (f.91v), and a heraldic shield in the initial below the Deposition miniature (f.63v): or, a lion rampant azure, langued and armed gules. (2) François-Michel-César Le Tellier (d.1781), Marquis de Courtanvaux (ink stamp on the leaf now in South Carolina, see below). (3) Edward Mars Elmhirst (d.1957) (bookplate; crest and initials on binding). (4) At least one leaf (see S. Gwara, A Census of Medieval Manuscripts in South Carolina Collections, no.82) was already removed when the volume was sold in our rooms, 14 June 1954, lot 32 (‘the use is unrecorded, but is close to that of Bourges’). (5) Harry Walton (d.2007); described in the Supplement to de Ricci’s Census; his sale at Bloomsbury’s, New York, 3 April 2009, lot 15; broken-up soon afterwards with leaves appearing on the market in Germany before the end of that year. (6) This leaf: Hartung & Hartung, 27 Nov. 2009, lot 46, bought by the present owner.

Three other miniatures from the same manuscript were sold in our rooms 6 December 2011, lot 9, and three more were 7 July 2015, lots 42–44, where images and further information are provided (see SOTHEBYS.COM).