A leaf from the Llangattock Breviary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

Estimate

1,200 - 1,800 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

a single leaf, 273mm. by 200mm., double column, 30 lines, written-space 166mm. by 127mm., small initials, 6 large illuminated initials in burnished gold on coloured grounds, three illuminated bar borders sprouting into elaborate sprays of coloured and burnished gold flowers and leaves in upper and lower margins, a full-length border in the outer margin of the recto, slight wear, in a Folio Fine Art mount (leaves were offered in their cat. 47, June 1967, no.206, “the quality of the leaves is extremely high”); with a single leaf from the Decretum of Gratian, with gloss, 464mm. by 292mm., up to 70 lines of text in two columns with surrounding gloss in 100 lines, 36 decorated initials in red for blue with very fine contrasting penwork, Italy (doubtless Bologna), mid-fourteenth century

Catalogue Note

The Llangattock Breviary is almost certainly to be identified with the manuscript documented as being made between 1441 and 1448 for Leonello d’Este, duke of Ferrara 1441-50, one of the great art patrons of the renaissance, at a rate of 5 lire a gathering, plus the cost of gold and the expenses of five different illuminators, including Giorgio d’Alemagna and Guglielmo Giraldi (cf., among other references, G.M. Canova, Guglielmo Giraldi miniatori estense, 1995, pp.19 and 151, nn.17-19, and F. Toniolo, ed., La miniature a Ferrara dal tempo di Cosmè Tura all’eredità di Ercole de’ Roberti, 1998, pp.17-20 and 76-77). The defective manuscript was brought to Britain around 1810 by the Rolls family, later Barons Llangattock, who sold it at Christie’s, 8 December 1958, lot 190. It was broken up soon afterwards. A detail of one leaf appeared on a set of postage stamps in 1971. For longer accounts and further references, see the footnote to lot 32 in Alan Thomas’s sale in our rooms, 21 June 1993, and the leaf sold in these rooms, 23 June 1998, lot 23.