Leaf from a Dominican Missal, illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum, [Italy (Perugia?), 14th century]

Property from the Albright-Knox Art Gallery

Leaf from a Dominican Missal

Illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum. [Italy (Perugia?), 14th century (middle)]

Single leaf, c.320×230mm; written in a fine, regular, rounded gothic bookhand in 2 columns of 26 lines (210×150mm); with a 3-line ILLUMINATED INITIAL IN GOLD AND COLOURS for the Sunday within the octave of Ascension and decorated with five other fine penwork initials. Two small holes and some minor discolouration in the margins, but overall attractive and in very good condition.

LITERATURE:

de Ricci, Census, II (1937), p. 1947 no. 64

Judith Oliver, Manuscripts Sacred and Secular from the Collections of the Endowment for Biblical Research and Boston University (Boston, 1985), no. 73.

Barbara A. Shailor, ‘Otto Ege: His Manuscript Fragment Collection and the Opportunities Presented by Electronic Technology’, Journal of the Rutgers University Libraries, 60 (2003), 1–22, fig. I.8

Barbara A Shailor, ‘Otto Ege: Portfolios vs. Leaves’, Manuscripta, 53 (2009), 13–27, col. pl. 1.

Sotheby’s, Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, 26 November 1985, lot 66.

Scott Gwara, Otto Ege’s Manuscripts (Cayce, SC, 2013), Handlist no. 122, and figs. 36–7, 49, 90; citing leaves in nine American institutions.

PROVENANCE:

(1) MADE FOR THE DOMINICAN CONVENT IN PERUGIA (or perhaps another such convent in Umbria): the calendar (sold in our rooms in 1985), has the dedication of its church as one of the highest grade feasts, as well as Dominic’s feast, his translation, and that of the Dominican saint, Peter Martyr. Ege dated it precisely, to 1353, suggesting that there was once some evidence for this date, now lost (and not recorded in the 1936 or 1937 descriptions).

(2) Examined in 1880 by the Prefect of the Marciana Library, Venice.

(3) Marsden J. Perry, of Providence, RI; sold at American Art Association & Anderson Galleries, New York, 11 March 1936, lot 349 (‘on 328 leaves of vellum’, recording 4 missing leaves); bought by:

(4) Philip Duschnes and acquired (possibly after he had extracted some leaves) by:

(5) Otto Ege: de Ricci in 1937 records ‘323 ff.’, but still only ‘4 ff. missing’; broken by December 1937: leaves were included in his portfolios of ‘101 Original Leaves & Sets of Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts’, as no. 31.

(6) Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY; Gallery Purchase, 1940 (1940:355.17)