Book of Hours in Latin, Use of Rome. Illuminated with Miniatures.
Lyon, France, circa 1475-1500.
Small format illuminated manuscript prayerbook on parchment with six full page miniatures painted within arching frames with elaborate borders and a few lines of text beneath; eight miniatures painted on fore-margins illustrating scenes from Christ's nativity and Mary's Assumption; eleven small inset portraits by another hand depicting the Suffrages of the Saints, including Michael, John, Peter & Paul, John the Evangelist, Sebastian, Anthony Abbott, Catherine, Barbara, and Mary Magdalene; and one full page portrait of Christ's Agony in the Garden in yet another hand surrounded by a trompe l'oeil jeweled frame; the work attributed to various Lyon masters; the text consisting of 198 leaves, missing a possible blank between leaves 56 & 57, text contiguous; text in brown ink with rubrics line-fill and other added embellishments in red, pink, blue, with white and burnished gold tracery on many; bound in 17th century gilt-tooled morocco; chipped with loss at head and tail, lacking clasp, all edges gilt; some instances of surface loss affecting some miniatures; the text in two distinct sections, with three blank leaves after leaf 155, the following section likely created several decades after the first; the book housed in a custom case with black morocco spine; a full list of the illuminated subjects available upon request; 3 1/4 x 2 3/8 in.
