Paris Hours c.1500 : CHD: Dismembered Manuscripts 2002-2005

Dismembered Illuminated Manuscripts
Hours, use of Paris c.1500 - 16 lines
Heures à l'usage de Paris (Paris c.1500)

Heures à l'usage de Paris (Paris c.1500) Devise: VBI FIDES / IBI AMOR
{Initials: S.P. - E.H.}
182 ff., 179 x 127mm.,16 lines (118 x 70mm).
Ex: Sotheby's Western Manuscripts & Miniatures, Sale 5 July 2005 Lot 104
[Northern France (Paris), c.1500]
Divided and sold in lots of five or six mixed leaves. 13 lots sold at Reiss & Sohn (Sale 105/I) 26 April 2006 lot 696-708 (including 8 miniatures and 26 single leaves).


Text page with outer border: Doulce dame The traditional exclamative E is enforced by an initial H Folio 159 (whereabouts unknown)

Contents

Calendar (f.1-12), in French, with an entry for every day (including in burnished gold St. Geneviève and St. Marcel)
Gospel Sequences (f.13)
1. *Saint John on Patmos, 103 x 72mm., his eagle holding a pencase in its beak; the border including a frog
2. St.Luke, with his ox (fol.15)
3. St.Matthew, with his angel (fol.16v)
4. St.Mark, with his lion (fol.18, described in the rubric as Matthew)
Obsecro te (f.19)
*The Virgin and Child enthroned, 104 x 73mm., angels on either side; the border including a bird and an ape.
O intemerata (f.23)
*Virgin and Child on a crescent moon (f.23)
Hours of the Virgin [Use of Paris]
1. Matins (f.27)
  *The Annunciation, 103 x 74mm., the Virgin kneeling outside a tent in an interior, Gabriel holding a staff and raising a finger.
2. Lauds (f.48v)
  *Visitation, 102 x 72mm., set in a landscape with bushes on a hillside.
3. Prime (f.59v)
  *Nativity, 105 x 73mm., the Child lying on the hem of the Virginąs robe, Joseph shielding a candle from the wind.
4. Terce (f.65)
  *Annunciation to the Shepherds, 106 x 76mm., two standing shepherds looking up towards a blue angel with a banderole.
5. Sext (f.69)
  *Adoration of the Magi, 102 x 73mm.
6. None (f.73)
  *Presentation in the Temple, 103 x 73mm., the priest standing behind the altar cradling the Child in his arms, Joseph with a basket of doves.
7. Vespers (f.77)
  *Flight into Egypt, 103 x 72mm., Joseph leading the donkey off to the right, a pagan idol statue falling from its pillar behind.
8. Compline (f.83v)
  *Coronation of the Virgin, 103 x 72mm., God enthroned blessing the Virgin who kneels before him.
Hours of the Cross (f.88v)
*Crucifixion, 105 x 75mm., saints on the left, soldiers on the right.
Hours of the Holy Spirit (f.92)
*Pentecost, 103 x 74mm., the Virgin kneeling at a prie-dieu draped in green, with the apostles around her.
Penitential Psalms (f.96) and Litany (including St. Geneviève)
*David and Bathsheba, 103 x 73mm., David leaning out of a window towards Bathsheba who dips her feet in an architectural pond fed by a fountain.
Office of the Dead (f.113v) [Use of Paris]
*Job on the Dungheap, 104 x 74mm., visited by three comforters outside the ruins of his house.
Quinze Joyes, in French (f.157) <He (!) tresdoulce dame>
f.157 *Pietà, 81 x 72mm., the Virgin at the foot of the Cross with the Body of Christ across her lap, with SS.John and Mary Magdalene.
Sept Requêtes, in French (f.162v)
*The Trinity (fol.162v)
Suffrages to the Saints (f.165)
1. St.Michael fighting the Devil (f.165v)
2. St.John the Baptist with a lamb on a book (f.166)
3. St.John the Evangelist blessing the poisoned chalice (f.166v, wrongly described by the rubric as St.John the Baptist)
4. SS.Peter and Paul (fol.167)
5. St.Christopher carrying the Child (f.168)
6. St.Sebastian(f.169)
7. St.Anne teaching the Virgin to read (fol.170v)
8. St.Katherine (fol.171)
9. St.Margaret and the dragon (f.171v)
10. St.Geneviève, with an angel bringing a lighted candlestick (f.172v).
Prayers to the Virgin (f.173) and for use at Mass.

[With acknowledgement due to the lively and poetic description of the miniatures written by the expert at Sotheby's London]

DESCRIPTION: Sotheby's Western Manuscripts (SALE L05240) 5 July 2005 Lot 104
[Northern France (Paris), c.1500]
182 leaves (one blank), 179mm. by 127mm., complete,
16 lines, ruled in red ink, written-space 118mm. by 70mm., written in dark brown ink in a fine gothic liturgical hand.
Collation: i-ii⁶, iii⁸, iv⁶, v^8-1 [i cancelled], vi-xi⁸, xii¹⁰, xiii⁴, xiv^8-2 [i-ii cancelled], xv-xxiii⁸, xxiv⁸⁺¹, with traces of vertical catchwords,
Calendar in red and blue with major entries in burnished gold, capitals touched in yellow, line-fillers and versal initials throughout in highly burnished gold on red and blue grounds with white tracery, 2- to 3-line initials in colours enclosing coloured flowers infilled with liquid gold and on burnished gold panels, panel borders on rectos throughout in designs of coloured acanthus leaves with flowers and fruit on parti-coloured liquid gold grounds.
Sixteen small miniatures with three-quarter illuminated borders, the miniatures mostly 6 to 7 lines high within liquid gold frames.
Fifteen large miniatures with full borders, the miniatures above large initials and usually 4 lines of text, the borders sometimes including birds and grotesques, prayers at end in a slightly later hand.
Full-page illuminated achievement of arms added at beginning, the miniature on fol.96 rubbed and slightly retouched.
In a binding of late medieval German style of wooden boards covered with russet leather blind ruled into a frame and satire pattern, pierced metal corner-pieces and clasp and catch, vellum endleaves, gilt edges, inside front cover with a coloured engraving of the Crucifixion printed on silk, signed by Hieronymus W[ierix] (1553-1619, of Antwerp),