Leaf from the celebrated Beauvais Missal, with three animal-headed drollery creatures, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens), early fourteenth century (probably c. 1310)] Single leaf, with double column of mixed text and music in 13/14 lines (recto) and 18/19 lines (verso) of two sizes of a high grade of early gothic bookhand, those with music accompanied by a 4-line red stave, capitals enclosing quatrefoil penwork tiles (some of these touched in yellow wash or red), pale red rubrics (one with 'ORATIO' in ornamental capitals), three 2-line initials in blue or dark pink with white penwork, on coloured grounds with circles of gold at the edges, these leading to foliate extensions in the margin terminating in ivy-leaves (one such initial with extensions nearly the whole page in height), two large initials on recto formed from the bodies of coloured winged beasts with gaping mouths (one devouring a golden fruit), each on long and thin panel of blue or dark pink grounds with circles of gold, and with foliate extensions as before, verso with a similar animal above one of the smaller initials (with a curved body and an open mouth placed as if he is about to eat a line of text), tiny scuffs to gold in places, some offset from decoration on adjacent pages in original volume, else fresh and bright condition, 288 by 200mm. Of all books dispersed by the self-proclaimed biblioclast Otto Ege (1888-1951), the Beauvais Missal is perhaps the most famous as well as the most visually striking. It was owned by Robert de Hangest, canon of Beauvais Cathedral. He gifted the book to the Cathedral in 1356, and it was still there in the seventeenth century. By the nineteenth century it had passed to Didier Petit de Meurville (1793-1873) of Lyon; his sale in 1843, lot 354. It passed to Henri Auguste Brölemann (1775-1854) of Lyon, and by descent to his great-grand daughter, who sold it in Sotheby s, 4 May 1926, lot 161, to William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951). It was then sold by the Gimbel Bros., New York, to Philip C. Duschnes (1897-1970), who presumably broke the volume and sold a number of leaves to Otto Ege in 1942 or 1943 (see S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, p. 45). It was no. 15 of Ege s Handlist, and the known leaves are now widely dispersed (see Gwara, pp. 122-23 for lists of these, his HL 15, and Lisa Fagin Davis' online reconstruction). This leaf was acquired by Roger Martin in Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 4 September 2013, lot 143.
Leaf from the celebrated Beauvais Missal, with three animal-headed drollery creatures, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (perhaps Beauvais or Amiens), early fourteenth century (probably c. 1310)] Single leaf, with double column of mixed text and music in 13/14 lines (recto) and 18/19 lines (verso) of two sizes of a high grade of early gothic bookhand, those with music accompanied by a 4-line red stave, capitals enclosing quatrefoil penwork tiles (some of these touched in yellow wash or red), pale red rubrics (one with 'ORATIO' in ornamental capitals), three 2-line initials in blue or dark pink with white penwork, on coloured grounds with circles of gold at the edges, these leading to foliate extensions in the margin terminating in ivy-leaves (one such initial with extensions nearly the whole page in height), two large initials on recto formed from the bodies of coloured winged beasts with gaping mouths (one devouring a golden fruit), each on long and thin panel of blue or dark pink grounds with circles of gold, and with foliate extensions as before, verso with a similar animal above one of the smaller initials (with a curved body and an open mouth placed as if he is about to eat a line of text), tiny scuffs to gold in places, some offset from decoration on adjacent pages in original volume, else fresh and bright condition, 288 by 200mm. Of all books dispersed by the self-proclaimed biblioclast Otto Ege (1888-1951), the Beauvais Missal is perhaps the most famous as well as the most visually striking. It was owned by Robert de Hangest, canon of Beauvais Cathedral. He gifted the book to the Cathedral in 1356, and it was still there in the seventeenth century. By the nineteenth century it had passed to Didier Petit de Meurville (1793-1873) of Lyon; his sale in 1843, lot 354. It passed to Henri Auguste Brölemann (1775-1854) of Lyon, and by descent to his great-grand daughter, who sold it in Sotheby s, 4 May 1926, lot 161, to William Randolph Hearst (1863-1951). It was then sold by the Gimbel Bros., New York, to Philip C. Duschnes (1897-1970), who presumably broke the volume and sold a number of leaves to Otto Ege in 1942 or 1943 (see S. Gwara, Otto Ege's Manuscripts, 2013, p. 45). It was no. 15 of Ege s Handlist, and the known leaves are now widely dispersed (see Gwara, pp. 122-23 for lists of these, his HL 15, and Lisa Fagin Davis' online reconstruction). This leaf was acquired by Roger Martin in Lyon & Turnbull, Edinburgh, 4 September 2013, lot 143.
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
