Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Paris, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1410-c.1420] An early-15th century Parisian Book of Hours, painted by an illuminator who adopts the distinctive, linear style of Perrin Remiet, favourite of the court of Charles VI. 176 x 120mm. i + 130 + i leaves, lacking one miniature leaf, catchwords survive, gatherings numbered in modern pencil, 16 lines, ruled space: 105 x 65mm. Six large miniatures within full-page borders composed of baguettes and ivy-leaf sprays, three-line illuminated initials with bar borders of ivy sprays opening the canonical hours after Matins, illuminated initials throughout, (miniatures and illuminated initials sometimes rubbed, the margins thumbed and slightly cropped, occasionally stained). 17th-century French brown calf gilt. Provenance: (1) The calendar, liturgical use and style of illumination are all consistent with the manuscript having been made in Paris at the beginning of the 15th century. The feast days of saints venerated in Paris appear in the calendar in red, including the patron saints of the city – Genevieve (3 January), Louis (25 August), and Denis (9 October); the feast of the confessor bishop St Marcel (3 November) is also afforded the same prominence. (2) Individual prayers and owners’ inscriptions in French and Latin added throughout the manuscript between the 16th and 18th centuries: the prayers on ff.61-62 and ff.129-130 are 16th-century additions – the first apparently written by a later owner on a ruled blank, while the second is found on two leaves added at the end of the manuscript – post-dated by the inscriptions on ff.1 (?‘yn yos’), 12 (‘Magrit [Marguerite] ?’) and 18 and the 17th-century prayers on f.113. Content: Calendar ff.1-12v; Gospel extracts ff.13-17v ; ruled blank f.18; Hours of the Virgin, use of Paris f.19-61v; ruled blank with added prayer to the Cross, in French f.62; Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany (opening imperfectly, lacking miniature leaf) f.63-77v; Hours of the Cross ff.78-83v; Hours of the Holy Spirit ff.84-88v; Office of the Dead ff.89-112v; ruled blank with added prayer in French f.113; Obsecro te and O intemerata ff.114-120; Fifteen Joys of the Virgin ff.121-125v; Seven Requests to our Lord ff.126-128v; added prayers ff.129-130. Illumination: The influence of Perrin Remiet, documented in Paris from 1386 to 1428, is evident here in the use of a crisp black line to outline the figures, to define the curls of their hair and their large, deep-set eyes as well as the drapery; Remiet’s richly illuminated copies of secular texts, which made him a favourite with the court of Charles VI during Paris’s greatest period as a centre of illumination, are populated with the type of naturalistically modelled figures set against patterned backgrounds that the illuminator of the present manuscript has emulated here (for discussion of the master see François Avril, 'Trois manuscrits napolitains des collections de Charles V et du duc de Berry', Bibliothèque de l'École des chartes, 127, 1969, pp.291-328). The gold acanthus background employed by the artist in the Virgin and Child miniature was popularised in Paris by the Mazarine Master (fl. c. 1400-1420) and his main collaborator, the Egerton Master (fl. c.1404-1420). The subjects of the full-page miniatures are as follow: Annunciation f.19; Crucifixion f.78; Pentecost f.84; Funeral Mass f.89; Virgin and Child f.121; Last Judgement f.126. Please note this lot is the property of a private individual.