Mar 07, 2019 - Sale 2501

Sale 2501 - Lot 168

Price Realized: $ 42,500
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 20,000 - $ 30,000
(MANUSCRIPT.) Illuminated Prayer Book in Latin and French on vellum, written in bâtarde hand in brown ink with rubrics in red, 21 lines. with twenty larger and fifteen smaller miniatures in colors and gold, most within simple gold borders filled with floral or other motifs, and with decorated initials of 1-2 lines and line fillers throughout. 206 (of ?) leaves, foliated sequentially in later hand but with leaf numbered 95 belonging before 148 and leaves 146-147 before 128, and with gap in text between leaves 48-49, 126-127, and 172-173. 118x80 mm, gilt-tooled vellum boards circa 1800 in the style of Edwards of Halifax, with grisaille depictions of Christ and children on front cover and baptism of Christ on rear cover, blue endpapers; margins trimmed entering borders mainly at top, occasional marginal soiling, surface wear or flaking of paint causing noticeable loss to border and miniature on leaf 1r and to border on 90r and slightly affecting small miniature on 26v, partly erased paint in lower margin below border on 25r; 1/4 morocco folding case. Bookplate of Hale of Alderley, Gloucestershire; sold at Bonhams & Brooks on 5 June 2001 as lot 49, with the illumination attributed to the Master of François de Rohan. France, 1530s-40s

Additional Details

Prayer book possibly executed for the Benedictine abbess depicting in the miniature on 18r. Contents: 1r-10, hymns and gospel readings; 10v-17r, Prayers of St. Bridget; 17r-v, salutation to the wounds of Christ; 18r-24r, O Intemerata and other prayers to the Virgin; 24r-30v, Suffrages; 31r-40v, Penitential Psalms and Litany; 41r-43r, sequence for Pentecost; 43r-46r, prayers before and after Communion; 46r-48v, Horloge de la Passion, incomplete at end; 49r-172v, Psalms interspersed with prayers and hymns, including Seven Verses of St. Bernard, prayer to St. Roch, and Canticles of Zechariah and Simeon; 172v-197r, gospel readings; 197r-206v, prayers in French and Latin.

Miniatures: 1r, Holy Trinity; 3r, St. John on Patmos; 4v, Agony in the Garden, within border of thistles; 10v, St. Bridget of Sweden; 18r, Benedictine abbess, possibly the original owner of the book, kneeling before the Virgin and Child, within border of rosary beads; 23r, Guardian Angel; 24r, St. John the Baptist; 24v, St. John the Evangelist; 25r, St. James the Greater; 25v, Crucifixion, within border showing the Instruments of the Passion; 26v, St. Anne and the Virgin; 27r, St. Mary Magdalene; 27v, St. Ursula and the 11,000 Virgins; 28r, Louis IX of France; 28v, St. Augustine; 29r, St. Paul; 29v, St. Peter of Luxembourg; 30r, St. Catherine; 30v, St. Agnes; 31r, David in prayer, within border of flasks; 41r, Pentecost, within border depicting tongues of fire; 43r, Man of Sorrows as Shepherd; 46r, Pietà; 81r, Nativity, within border of lilies and thorns; 95r, Presentation in the Temple, within border of doves; 126v, St. Roch; 148v, Christ among Doctors; 153r, Virgin of the Seven Sorrows, within border of hearts in bookbinding presses; 157v, Virgin before the risen Christ, within border of armillary spheres; 159r, Death of the Virgin, within border of angelic musicians; 160v, Virgin of Humility; 162v, Holy Kinship, within border depicting Tree of Jesse; 166r, Coronation of the Virgin, within border of gold fleurs-de-lis on blue ground representing the French monarchy; 172v, Virgin and Child; 189v, Agony in the Garden, within border of fence with pointed stakes.