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Anonymous Parisian workshop

Lot 40
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 30 240
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 993208
Lot 40 | Anonymous Parisian workshop
Estimate value
£ 12 000 – 18 000
Anonymous Parisian workshop

Psalter-Hymnal, in French and Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, early 15th century]

A medieval Psalter-Hymnal in the vernacular, owned by a succession of French bibliophiles: from Nicolas Moreau d'Auteuil (1544-?1619), treasurer-general of France, whose collections are known to have included several important religious and secular works in translation, to the celebrated painter, draughtsman and engraver Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois (1777-1837). Schoenberg Database lists only twenty 15th-century Psalters written in French in public collections worldwide.



266 x 180mm. ii (paper) + i (vellum) + 140 + i + ii leaves, complete, collation: 1-178, 24, catchwords survive, paginated in a 19th-century hand, 24 lines, ruled space: 162 x 95mm, rubrics underlined in red, one- and two-line illuminated initials on red and blue grounds with white penwork decoration at verses and chapters throughout, eight large (four- to six-line) illuminated initials in red, blue and white on burnished gold grounds with bar ascenders terminating in marginal sprays of leaves and flowers to open each group of Psalms (first gathering loose in stitching, margins a little trimmed, finger soiling and smudges throughout, most prominent to f.1). ?16th-century pink velvet, lettered in ink on the spine: ‘Psautier francais MS sur Vel[in] ?XV.Se’, vellum endleaves (upper cover and spine detached from the text block, bottom vellum spine compartment lacking, velvet of the spine bands, hinges, edges and corners worn away, lacking original ties).



Provenance:

(1) Produced in Paris at the beginning of the 15th century; the style of the large illuminated initials is typical of manuscripts painted in the French capital in this period.



(2) Nicolas Moreau d'Auteuil (1544- ?1619), treasurer-general of France; his added coat of arms, ownership inscription (‘Cest a moy Nicolas Moreau D’Auteuil/ tresorier general de France/ a Paris’) and anagram-motto (‘A Lami Son Coeur') on f.1 and further signatures added throughout. A discerning bibliophile, Moreau counted among his collections a number of important religious and secular works in French translation, including Les Oeuvres Morales et Meslées, a 1572 translation of Plutarch by the humanist writer Jacques Amyot, now held in the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Inv. LA252) and a 14th-century Psalter in French now among the collections of the Bibliothèque nationale de France (NAF 10044). The births and deaths of the Moreau children are recorded by Nicolas on the opening vellum flyleaf: the first, Madeleine, was born in 1573.



(3) Henri Gaugain (1799- after 1834); presented in 1830 to:



(4) Eustache-Hyacinthe Langlois (1777-1837), painter, draftsman, engraver and writer; his ownership inscription dated 1830 on the opening vellum flyleaf and calligraphic ex-libris recording the gift from Gaugain on the final vellum flyleaf (not identified in his sale; Rouen, 22 January 1838).



(5) Sold by Anatole Claudin (1833-1906), bibliophile and bookseller, to:



(6) Pottier de Lalaine, publisher and bookseller; cat. 1-2, January-March 1872, no 61.



(7) Henri-Léonard Bordier (1817-1888), literary historian; not in his sales of 1889 and 1894.



(8) Ernest Strœhlin (1844-1907), author; his sale (Paris, 1912, II, no 462), bought by –



(9) Lucien Gougy (1863-1931), Parisian bookseller.



(10) Wilfrid Voynich (1865-1930), Polish revolutionary, antiquarian and bibliophile remembered as the eponym of the celebrated Voynich manuscript at the Beinecke. Presumably purchased for the Art Institute of Chicago following Voynich’s exhibition at the Art Institute, 7 October – 3 November 1915.



Content:

Psalter-Hymnal, in French with partial Latin rubrication ff.1-140. Incipit: ‘Cy commence le livre des pseaulmes des hympnes ou des seuls parlers de davide le prophete’; explicit: ‘Ci finit le psaultier en francois/ Deo gracias’.



Medieval translations of the Psalms and Canticles (or Hymns) into French can be found in institutional collections – the Bibliothèque nationale de France holds a 13th-century example in the translation of Pierre de Paris (Français 1761) – but the text of our manuscript appears to be unrecorded.



Literature :

H. Michelant, ‘Sur un psautier français manuscript du XIVe siècle’, Le Bibliographe musical, vol. I (1872), pp.6-11.





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Place of origin:Western Europe, France, Europe
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