Book of Hours, use of Paris, illuminated manuscript on vellum [France (Paris), early 16th century]

Property from the Brooklyn Museum, sold to support Museum Collections

Book of Hours, Use of Paris

in Latin with some French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [France (Paris), early 16th century]

i + 247 + i leaves, c.110×75mm; 13 lines per page (c.60×40mm) in bâtarde script; ILLUMINATED WITH TEN LARGE AND THIRTEEN SMALL MINIATURES EACH WITH FULL BORDERS, one- and two-line illuminated initials throughout, pages with a two-line initial each with a panel border; the Hours (but not the following texts) paginated in ink, lacking 197–200 due to the loss of a bifolium, a calendar is presumably missing, and there is some wear throughout. Bound in nineteenth-century polished brown calf, with gilt borders and spine

PROVENANCE

Miss Mary Benson, of Brooklyn; bequeathed in 1919 to the Brooklyn Museum of Art, with their accession no. ‘19.77’. de Ricci, p. 1195, no. 10.

TEXT

Extracts from the gospels (f.1r); prayers ‘Obsecro te’ (f.9v), ‘O intemerata’ (f.15r), and Stabat mater’ (f.19r); added ‘Orayson devote de nostre seigneur’ (f.22r); Hours of the Virgin (f.24r); Seven Penitential Psalms (f.108r); Office of the Dead (f.133r); Prayer to the Trinity (f.172r); mass prayers, with rubrics in French, ‘Quant on veult recepvoir’, etc. (f.175v); several prayers to the Virgin (f.181v); added ‘Salutacions des cinq playes de nostre s.’ (f.202v); an unusually long series of prayers (f.205r) to the Cross, Michael, Guardian angel, and saints, including Francis, Alexis, and Lupus, ‘Des deux Maries’ Mary Jacobi and Mary Salome (f.230v), with the Seven Verses of St Bernard embedded within them (f.239v). The final page with a partially erased added inscription.

ILLUMINATION

The subjects of the large miniatures are:

1. (f.24r) Annunciation

2. (f.56r) Pentecost

3. (f.58r) Nativity

4. (f.68r) Annunciation to the Shepherds

5. (f.76r) Adoration of the Magi

6. (f.83r) Presentation in the Temple

7. (f.90r) Flight into Egypt

8. (f.108r) David and Bathsheba

9. (f.133r) A Soul in the fires of Hell, appealing to god above

10. (f.172r) The Trinity

Small miniatures:

1. (f.1r) St John

2. (f.3v) St Luke

3. (f.5v) St Matthew

4. (f.8r) St Mark

5. (f.9v) Pietà

6. (f.15r) The Virgin in prayer

7. (f.54r) Betrayal and Arrest of Christ

8. (f.66r) Christ before Pilate

9. (f.74r) Mocking of Christ

10. (f.81r) Flagellation

11. (f.88r) Crucifixion

12. (f.98r) Deposition

13. (f.107r) Entombment