Lot 52

Book of Hours, Use of Tournai, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum Flanders (probably Tournai), c.1430-50]

Estimate

4,000 - 6,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

78 leaves (plus 2 modern paper flyleaves at front and one at back), 152mm. by 106mm., complete, 17 lines in a gothic bookhand, written space 115mm. by 75mm., rubrics in red, one-line initials in blue or gold with red or black penwork, 2-line initials in gold on red and blue grounds, 4-line initials the same, accompanied by double-bars ending in small gold ivy leaves, five small miniatures with partial borders made of gold ivy leaves, coloured acanthus and flowers, five three-quarter page miniatures with 4-line initials in red or blue on contrasting grounds, enclosing coloured ivy leaves on burnished gold grounds, and full borders, the same as before, vellum cockled and stained, miniatures and borders rubbed and smudged, in fair condition, nineteenth-century brown leather binding, gilt title on cover ‘Heures du XIIIe. Se. avec Miniatures Appt. à Mr. Monteil’, scuffed and scratched, spine rebacked with gilt title ‘Heures du XVe Siècle’

Provenance

provenance

(1) This manuscript was probably illuminated in Tournai in the 1430s or 1440s. The Hours of the Virgin is for the Use of Tournai and the Calendar includes important local feast days in red: namely SS. Piat, patron of the city (1 October), Eloy, bishop of Noyon-Tournai (1 December) as well as the translation of his relics (25 June). Another Book of Hours, also for the Use of Tournai and very similar was probably illuminated by the same workshop (Drouot, 9 March 2009, lot 152).

(2) Amans-Alexis Monteil (1769-1850), French historian, book-collector and dealer (see J-L. Lemaitre in Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 164, 2006, pp.227-49: in his distinctive binding; many other books in his bindings are recorded in public collections, notably Paris, BnF.

(3) Early twentieth-century (dated 23 April 1910) English ex-libris on first flyleaf.

Catalogue Note

text

The text includes: a Calendar in French (fol.1r); the Hours of the Cross (fol.7r); the Hours of the Holy Spirit (fol.10r); the Hours of the Virgin with Matins (fol.13r), Lauds (fol.20v), Prime (fol.27r), Terce (fol.30v), Sext (fol.33r), None (fol.35r), Vespers (fol.37v) and Compline (fol.42r); prayers in Latin and French (fol.46r); Suffrages to the Saints (fol.49v); the Seven Penitential Psalms (fol.52r) including a litany starting on fol.60r; the Office of the Dead (fol.66r); and the Vespers hymn for the feast of Pentecost added by a professional contemporary hand (fol.77v).