Anonymous Parisian atelier

Lot 4
13.07.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
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£ 1 386
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 794483
Lot 4 | Anonymous Parisian atelier
Estimate value
£ 1 500 – 2 500
Anonymous Parisian atelier

A leaf from a Breviary, in Latin with French rubrics, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, second half 14th century]

A sparkling leaf from a well-known deluxe Breviary possibly made for the Church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles de Paris in the second half of the 14th century.



234 x 173mm. Two columns of 36 lines written in a fine gothic hand, ruled space: 172 x 55mm, the text from the Hour of Lauds, contemporary foliation in red 'vij xx xvij', one large illuminated initial extending into a full bar border, 6 smaller initials in red or blue on gold grounds, rubrics in red, line fillers in gold and blue, smaller initials in blue with red penwork decoration, modern pencil foliation '190' (slightly cropped to lower margin, minor marginal staining, a small smudge below the large initial).



Provenance:

(1) The parent manuscript was written and illuminated in Paris in the second half of the 14th century, most probably for a Franciscan house dedicated to St. Aegidius/Gilles (with references on some leaves to that saint as 'our patron'), possibly for the Church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles de Paris.

(2) It was likely dispersed in the late 1920s or early 1930s, with leaves first appearing in Quaritch's 1931 catalogue, nos. 127 and 128. Other leaves can be found in a bequest by Lord Cholmondeley of 2 leaves to the Society for Italic Handwriting; a UK private collection, bought from Quaritch in 1950 (these with the address to St. Aegidius as 'our patron' in prime from the office of that saint); Sotheby's, 5 April 1976, part of lot 601, the teaching collection of A.N.L. Munby, illustrated in frontispiece image there; Sotheby's, 19 June 1979, lot 3 (this described later in Sotheby's December 1994, as then in a Swiss collection); Christie's, New York, September 1981, lot 16; Sotheby's, 8 December 1981, lot 3; Quaritch, cat. 1056, Bookhands of the Middle Ages II (1985), no 69; Sotheby's, 24 June 1986, lot 50; Sotheby's, 22 June 1988, lot 11; and Maggs Bros., Bulletin 10 (June 1979), that now Tokyo, Keio University Library. Two further leaves appeared at Bloomsbury in 2021 in the collection of Roger Martin, lot 56.

(3) The present leaf was purchased at Quaritch in 2017.

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