Joseph with his Coat of Many Colours, and other initials on leaves from Lectionaries, in Latin [Austria (Salzburg), c.1150-1200]

four leaves and a bifolium, the leaves c.330x220–40mm, vellum, apparently all from a single very finely written manuscript, blind-ruled, 27 lines (c.275x175mm), margins and tiny amount of text cropped; the bifolium c.370x530mm, each page in 2 columns of which 31 lines survive, a few lines missing at the top, one side-margin also cropped, all recovered from use in bindings thus with typical creases, wear, and damage

Provenance: All these fragments doubtless come from the Romanesque library of a church in SALZBURG, broken-up and used as binders’ waste perhaps in the 16th century, and recovered in the 19th century: they were sold at Christie’s, 23 November 2010, lot 2, where it is recorded that they were acquired in Salzburg by the businessman, art lover, and landscape painter CARL VON FREY (1826–96). They were shown in 1893 to Pater Willibald Hauthaler (d.1922), medieval historian, chaplain, and later Abbot of St Peter’s, Salzburg, who wrote the neat identifications in red ink in the lower margin of each leaf.

Text and decoration: (a) Genesis 37:2–10: readings for the third Sunday in Lent, beginning with A VERY FINE HISTORIATED INITIAL ‘I’ in the form of a drawing of Joseph as a youth wearing nothing but a cloak (the text relates how, as a youth aged 17, his father gave him a ‘coat of many colours’); the recto blank except for cropped vestiges of a later 3-character shelfmark or number; (b) St John Chrysostom’s Homily LXXI on Matthew 22:34–36, beginning with A VERY FINE LARGE INITIAL ‘F’ INHABITED BY A BIRD; (c) III Kings 2:1–17: readings for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, beginning with A LARGE FINE INITIAL ‘A’; preceded by III Kings 1:44–45; (d) the end of a homily of Bede and the start of a homily of St Gregory (PL, LXXVI, 1243), for the feast of the Birth of Mary Magdalene (22 July), beginning with a large orange initial ‘A’; (e) Gospel readings and homilies attributed Gregory, Leo, and Maximus of Turin, for Advent.

For images of all five items see SOTHEBYS.COM