Lot 40

Book of Hours, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [west-central France (probably Poitiers), c.1470-80]

Estimate

40,000 - 60,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

199 leaves, (2 blank), plus 4 original endleaves at end, 136mm. by 89mm., lacking single leaves after fols.9 & 198, a blank cancelled after fol.32, else complete, 15 lines in dark brown ink in a regular lettre bâtarde, rubrics in red, panel borders throughout accompanying every 2-line initial containing foliage, flowers and fruit enclosing numerous birds, animals and humans (7 butterflies, 38 birds, a pelican stabbing its own breast, 3 pigs climbing trees, 13 monkeys, 10 half-human drolleries, 6 humans emerging from flower-buds including two knights in armour with swords and a cowled Benedictine monk reading a book, 7 putti, 3 angels and a man cutting foliage, twenty-nine historiated initials, 4 to 6 lines high, Calendar miniatures in outer and lower margins, and eighteen large miniatures in arched compartments above initials and 2 lines of text, within full borders often with other miniatures in bas-de-page, somewhat worn and rubbed throughout, with significant damage to first few leaves, miniature on fol.2 cut out and replaced by blank vellum, miniature on fol.164 cut out and then re-inserted with loss of outer border and some damage, overall mostly in good to fair condition, early seventeenth-century French calf elaborately gilt-tooled, rebacked

Provenance

provenance

1. Written for a male patron, most probably from the Loire valley, perhaps from Tours or Poitiers: Obsecro te in male form, and owner in a red tunic with a collar of office kneeling in miniature on fol.150r. The Calendar includes the translation of St.Gatian (Tours, 2 May), SS.William (St.Brieuc, 29 July), Maximus (Poitiers, 19 November), Crispina (Poitiers and Vannes, 5 December) and Cyprian (Périgueux, 9 December). St.Hilary of Poitiers leads the confessors in the Litany (f.108v).

2. Elizabeth Yvon, wife of the honourable man René Baudry, 'escuyer de la maison du Roy', with dated ownership inscription on flyleaf, noting that in March 1609 she was living in the Château de Mongognier in Touraine.

3. Etienne Claude Dessommes, signature dated 1754.

4. Thomas Pease, Leeds, 1836; and presumably by descent to Lord Wardington; his sale in our rooms, 13 December 1965, lot 212.

5. Sold in our rooms, 5 December 1989, lot 113, to the present owner.

Catalogue Note

text

The book includes a Calendar (fol.1r); the Gospel Sequences (12r); a prayer to the Virgin Missus est angelus (20v), preceded by a long rubric in French telling how it was revealed by the Virgin herself to a certain holy canon called Arnoul; the Hours of the Virgin, mixed with those of the Cross and of the Holy Ghost, with Matins (33r), Lauds (44v), Prime (60v), Terce (67v), Sext (72v), None (77v), Vespers (82r) and Compline (86r); the Penitential Psalms (93r) and Litany; the Office of the Dead (115r); prayers to Christ and the Virgin (150r), with the Obsecro te (155r) and O intemerata; Suffrages of the Saints (167v); and the Seven O's of St.Gregory (199r) preceded by an offer of 56,000 years indulgence for their use.

illumination

This is a profuse and rich Book of Hours with a total of 68 miniatures from the circle of the Jouvenal Master (see König, Französische Buchmalerei, 1982, esp.figs.132-5) and his contemporary, the Master of the Geneva Boccaccio. The style, with borders of very large crisp leaves often in bright pale green, and women with high prominent foreheads, is found in manuscripts along the Loire valley from Tours to Angers and Nantes (Plummer, Last Flowering, 1982, no.54), and this manuscript may well have been intended for use in Poitiers.

The subjects of the miniatures are:

1. folio 20v. The Annunciation, in a gothic interior, the Virgin kneeling at a prie-dieu under a canopy and turning to see Gabriel who carried a gold staff; border with two grotesques,: one spearing a bird and the other carrying a basket with two storks on his back.

2. folio 33r. Joseph's dream, an angel appearing to him as he lies sleeping in a loggia while the Virgin prays in a canopied embroidered tent; border with a child mounted on a dog charging at a monkey and rabbit with lantern. A very rare scene.

3. folio 44v. The Visitation, the Virgin, attended by Joseph, embracing St.Elizabeth in a landscape outside the walls of a large gothic city; in the distance two pilgrims converse; border with a bird, a peacock and a butterfly.

4. folio 57r. The Crucifixion, in a landscape with a view of Jerusalem, the Magdalene clutching the foot of the Cross as two soldiers on horseback gesture towards Christ; border includes a monkey teasing a bird.

6. folio 59r. Pentecost, in a tiles interior, the Virgin and Apostles gathered together and looking up at the Holy Dove as it sends down its rays; the border with a monkey preaching to a flock of cocks and ducks as a fox craftily sneaks off with a victim in his jaws.

7. folio 60v. The Nativity, in a lean-to stable built onto a picturesque ruin, the Virgin, Joseph and the ox adoring the Child as the ass peers up through a hole in the roof and a shepherd approaches to pay homage; border with a monkey playing a tambourine, a frog and a green parrot preening its feathers.

8. folio 67v. The Annunciation to the Shepherds, who stop attending to their flock and playing the bagpipes and gaze up towards the angel in the sky; border includes a grotesque playing the bagpipes and a wolf running away with a sheep.

9. folio 72v. The Adoration of the Magi, who present their gifts to the Holy Family outside a stable in a rocky landscape; border with two monkeys fighting, one of them mounted on the back of a grasshopper.

10. folio 77v. The Presentation in the Temple, the Virgin kneeling in front of an altar where Simeon has received the Child, the scene attended by a crowd of priests, holy women and curious spectators; borders with a monkey firing a crossbow at two birds.

11. folio 82. The Flight into Egypt, Joseph leading the donkey as in the background an army of soldiers question a peasant and a pagan statue falls from its pedestal; border includes a child and a bear dancing.

12. folio 86r. The Coronation of the Virgin, who kneels before the throne of God, surrounded by a host of seraphim; border with a green parrot and a grotesque firing an arrow at a yellow bird.

13. folio 93r. King David, dressed in regal jewel-encrusted robes, kneeling in prayer outside his magnificent palace, as his little greyhound trots away; border with monkeys riding a frog and a llama.

14. folio 115r. The Three Living and the Three Dead meeting at a cross-road where one of the young men's horse starts in terror at the sight of the skeletons and threatens to throw his rider; border includes a monkey pushing its two young in a wheelbarrow as they pick fruit from the border.

15. folio 121v. Job listening to his three friends as he lies on the dungheap outside the ruins of his house where his wife is waiting patiently for him to see sense; border with a man wrestling with a large bird and a grotesque playing a pipe.

16. folio 150r. The Last Judgement, with Christ sitting on a rainbow surrounded by the blessed, as the dead rise from their graves and a man in fifteenth-century dress (presumably the first owner of the book) prays for salvation; border with the archangel Michael supervising the damned being wheeled off to hell.

17. folio 164r. The Pietà, St.John and the Magdalene supporting the body of Christ on the Virgin's lap, as she sits between the two thieves who are still bound to their crosses; border with a monkey pulling a bird's tail.

18. folio 167v. Double image of St.Christopher carrying the Christ Child and St.Sebastian tied to a tree and shot full of arrows; border with a swan and other water-birds swimming in a stream. A very rare scene.

19. folio 182r. St.Barbara with her tower and a palm of martyrdom; in the background, the saint being tortured by fire at the stake; border with a peacock and monkeys jousting from the backs of long-necked grotesques.

The subjects of the Calendar and small miniatures are: a man feasting and a young man pouring water [very rubbed] (f.1r); two fish (f.2r); a man pruning and a woman carrying a basket on her head; a ram (f.3r); a huntsman with a dog and boar; a bull (f.4r); a young couple hawking; monkeys climbing a tree and twins embracing (f.5r); a man scything hay; a crab (f.6r); two peasants gathering the harvest; a lion (f.7r); two men threshing; a girl in pink (f.8r); a man treading grapes as another adds more to the barrel; a pair of scales (f.9r); a man bringing down a hail of acorns for his pigs; a centaur bending his bow (f.10r); a man slaughtering a pig for Christmas; a goat (f.11r); St. John (f.12r); the Annunciation (f.13v); the three Magi before Pilate (f.15r); Christ showing his wounds to St.Mark (f.17r); the Virgin and Child (f.31r); St.Sebastian (f.172v); St.Michael (f.173v); St.Stephen (f.175v); St.Hilary of Poitiers (f.176r); St.Lawrence (f.177r); St.Maturinus (f.178r); St. Martin (f.179r); St.Nicholas (f.180r); St.Eutropius (f.180v); St. Katherine (f.184v); St. Radegund of Poitiers (f.185r); St.Mary Magdalene (f.186r); St.John the Baptist (f.190v); St.Leonard (f.191r); St.Eligius (f.192r); St.Maurus (f.192v); St.Fiacre (f.193r); St.Margaret (f.195r); and St.Geneviève (f.198r).