Leaves from the 1408 Chester Beatty Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Paris)], dated 1408

three leaves, c.178x133mm, vellum, 15 lines (c.95x63mm), foliated 113, 144, and 129(?), f.144 was the first leaf of quire 19 and has the offset of a catchword, every page with full borders and each leaf with a two-line initial, the beginnings of Psalms 5, 148, and 39 respectively, water-stained around the edges, mounted on four paper leaves and bound in plain vellum over boards

Provenance: (1) From a dispersed manuscript which had a colophon stating that it was WRITTEN IN 1408, when the bridges of Paris were swept away in a storm (the colophon is reproduced in the Arcana sale catalogue, Christie’s, 7 July 2010, lot 22); an almost identical inscription occurs in Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 144 (on which see M. Hofmann in Mélanges en l'honneur de François Avril, 2007, pp.99-109). Both manuscripts are written by the same scribe, and the Mazarine Master (a collaborator with the Boucicaut Master and a contemporary of the Limbourg brothers), participated in both manuscripts. (2) JOHN BOYKETT JARMAN (d.1864), by 1846, when it was damaged in a flood in London; his sale in our rooms, 13 June 1864, lot 47. (3) Edward Arnold; his sale in our rooms, 6 May 1929, lot 240. (4) SIR ALFRED CHESTER BEATTY (d. 1968), his W MS.103, who took the volume apart; parts were sold in our rooms, 24 June 1969, lots 58 and 58A-K. (5) Priv. coll., UK (the same as lots 52 and 53).

For more details of the provenance, and a partial list of identified leaves (not including the present ones), see M. Manion et al., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, 1989, pp.96–8.