![[MANUSCRIPT] [Book of Hours].](/sites/default/files/styles/auction_slider/public/images/lots/2015-11-23/1072534.jpg?itok=7yZRSZrw)
Lot Details
Lot 112
[MANUSCRIPT] [Book of Hours]. Southern Netherlands, likely Bruges, second or third quarter of the 15th century. 18th century French ...
Southern Netherlands, likely Bruges, second or third quarter of the 15th century. 18th century French black velvet with a leather spine label, all edges red, housed in an early 20th century red morocco pull-off case. 6 1/2 x 4 1/2 inches (16.5 x 11 cm), with 72 vellum leaves with text in Latin, 21 lines written in a gothic bookhand, written area 4 1/2 x 3 1/4 inches (11.5 x 7.5 cm), with 13 small miniatures; seven historiated initials enclosing miniatures (for the Hours of the Virgin, each with an appropriate subject); six six-line initials in red and blue on contrasting grounds, enclosing colored acanthus leaves and flowers on burnished gold grounds; rubrics in red; one-line initials in blue or gold with red or black penwork; two-line initials in gold on red and blue grounds; with full borders made of colored acanthus, flowers and strawberries at leaves with miniatures or major initials. Collation: i^(6) ii-viii^(8) ix^(10), with no obvious hiatuses. Joints cracked through but holding, stitching cracking towards middle of book, a minor stain in the upper margin of the last ten leaves just touching the text, generally very clean, the borders not rubbed and entirely untrimmed, with good margins throughout. Likely complete as issued.
This Book of Hours was written in Bruges in the middle of the 15th century. Most of the region-specific saints in the rather sparse calendar were venerated in Bruges, e.g. Marcellus (2/21), Victor (3/5), Domitian (7/5), but several e.g. St. Quirinus Martyr (4/30) and St. Ignatius (12/17) are more characteristic of German usage and it may be that this typical Bruges prayerbook was prepared for the German market. The calendar is in a different hand from the main text.
The text includes a Calendar (ff. 1-6); a selection of Gospel readings starting with In Principio, John I, 1-14, with small miniatures of the Evangelists (ff. 7-9); various prayers, among them the Officium Sanctae Crucis, the Officium Sancti Spiritus and those for Lent (ff. 10-21r); Suffrages to the Saints (ff. 21v-24r, with miniatures of the Saints); the Hours of the Virgin with Matins (ff. 25-29), Lauds (ff. 30-35), Prime (ff. 36-37), Terce (ff. 38-39, curiously erroneously headed Prime, though the text correctly follows that for Terce), Sext (ff. 40-41), None (ff. 42-43), Vespers (f. 44-47, 47v blank) and Compline (ff. 48-49); Psalms and Litany of the Saints (ff. 50-59); and the Office of the Dead (ff. 60-72).
Provenance:
With the 1836 ownership inscription of H. Almack (likely the antiquary Henry Horn Almack of Melford, Surrey) on the front pastedown; the Roderick Terry bookplate on the front free endpaper, sold in his first sale, 1924, as lot 179 ($120).
C
Additional Notes & Condition Report
No condition report? Click here to request one.