?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 1,500 - $ 2,500
MASTERPIECE OF CHROMOLITHOGRAPHY (MANUSCRIPT REFERENCE--HORAE B.M.V.) Le Livre d'Heures de la Reine Anne de Bretagne. 2 volumes. Text volume is 4to, red cloth, rebacked, some wear and uneven coloring; contents slightly shaken, few minor soil marks. Facsimile is entirely lithographed in colors and gold throughout. Thick small folio, original red morocco with large brass catches and clasps with relief monograms and ornamentation, some soil marks to leather; pages toned sometimes unevenly, few mounts beginning to separate with a few at front bearing early cellotape repairs. Paris: L. Curmer 1841 [i. e., 1861]
first edition in book form. one of 850 sets of a facsimile the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany, Queen of France, ". . . commissioned from Jean Bourdichon around 1500 . . . one of the most magnificent Books of Hours ever made . . . A very special feature of the Grandes Heures is the botanical accuracy with which the flowers are depicted in the borders and given both their Latin and popular French names" (Harthan). The second volume contains a French translation by the Abbé Delaunay of the Latin text, and a catalogue by Joseph Decaisne of the plants shown in the borders. Harthan, pages 128-33; Ray, The Art of the French Illustrated Book 265 ("in its way . . . one of the most notable French flower books"); Vicaire V, 335-38 .
