- 39
Prayerbook, in Armenian, decorated manuscript on paper [Armenia, sixteenth century]
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description
- Paper
147 leaves (plus 3 endleaves at front with index in Armenian eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand listing contents: 44 prayers), 190mm. by 140mm., many leaves repaired in gutter with paper guards and hence uncollatable, text apparently complete, single column, 21 lines of fine bolorgir script in iridescent black ink, written space 160mm. by 110mm., rubrics in red in same, small initials in red, each new prayer opening with a floral cartouche, an initial letter formed of coloured line-drawn birds and two lines of capitals in red and faded purple, pagination by eighteenth- or nineteenth-century hand ‘516-808’ at head of each page, spots and stains throughout, some leaves (especially those at each end) with losses to edges (restored later), first gathering loose, overall in good to fair condition, contemporary binding of tooled brown leather (fan and floral sprays around a cross forming a central cabochon on each board within angel cornerpieces and a floral frame) over bevelled wooden boards, binding restored in eighteenth- or nineteenth-century, small holes in leather of backboard and tears to leather at outer corners of boards, splits at spine, thongs at front broken but solid in binding