Nov 09, 2010 - Sale 2229

Sale 2229 - Lot 42

Price Realized: $ 52,800
?Final Price Realized includes Buyer’s Premium added to Hammer Price
Estimate: $ 15,000 - $ 20,000
PARISIAN BOOK OF HOURS [Horae Beatae Mariae Virginis.] Illuminated manuscript in Latin and French, written in bâtarde script in brown ink, 27 lines (except Calendar in 33 and later additions in 25 lines), recto and verso, on vellum. With thirteen large and two small miniatures in colors and gold within full-page borders; 3-line divisional initials in blue on gold ground with floral decoration in colors; one- and two-line initials and line fills in gold alternately on blue and red ground throughout. 106 (of 107) leaves, of which 66-96 and 99-106 are late 16th-century additions. 133x94 mm, late 19th-century gilt- and blind-stamped brown morocco by Lortic fils, spine ends and rear joint rubbed; miniature borders slightly cropped along fore and bottom edges, slight pigment loss from sky in miniature of the Visitation, vellum of some text leaves slightly darkened, surface rubbing with diminished legibility or text loss on a few leaves of the additional portion. With the bookplate of the financier, philanthropist, and collector Adolph Lewisohn (1849-1938), sold as lot 187 in the sale of his library at Parke-Bernet, 25 January 1940. De Ricci & Wilson II, 881. Paris, late 15th century, with late 16th-century additions

Additional Details

Use of Rome. Contents: Calendar (1v-4r, 1r and 4v blank); Office of the Virgin (5r-32v, lacking last leaf of compline); Hours of the Cross (33r-34v); Hours of the Holy Spirit (35r-36v); Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany (37r-45v); Office of the Dead (46r-58r); Suffrages (58v-60v); sequence of prayers beginning with Stabat Mater dolorosa (61r-65v); Exercitium Quotidianum, comprising miscellaneous prayers added in late 16th-century hand (66r-93r); 94r-96v blank; Obsecro te (97r-98v); last 8 leaves blank.
The subjects of the miniatures are: Annunciation (5r); Visitation (10v); Nativity (16v); Annunciation to the Shepherds (19r); Adoration of the Magi (21v); Presentation in the Temple (24r); Massacre of the Innocents (26v); Assumption of the Virgin (30v); Christ carrying the Cross (33r); Pentecost (35r); David and Bathsheba (37r); Dives and Lazarus (46r); Pietà (61r); wound in Christ's side (64r); and Virgin and Child (97r).