Anonymous Picard illuminator - photo 1
Anonymous Picard illuminator - photo 2
Anonymous Picard illuminator - photo 3
Anonymous Picard illuminator - photo 4
Anonymous Picard illuminator - photo 5

Anonymous Picard illuminator

Lot 7
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 2 520
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
Buyer Premiumsee on Website%
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The auction is completed. No bids can be placed anymore.
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ID 870859
Lot 7 | Anonymous Picard illuminator
Estimate value
£ 1 200 – 1 800
Anonymous Picard illuminator

A bifolium and two leaves from an illuminated Breviary for Cistercian use, in Latin [Picardy, perhaps Amiens, c.1290s]

Four leaves with lively birds and grotesques from a sumptuously illuminated Cistercian Breviary, likely produced in Amiens at the end of the 13th century.



Four leaves, each c.160 x 106mm., 25 lines in two columns, ruled space: c.108 x 71mm, modern pagination in pencil 1-4, 143-144 and 157-158, the text including the Office of Edmond of Pontigny on p.158, rubrics in red, 17 illuminated initials, most extending into margins, 4 with birds or human-bird hybrids perched on top (margins slightly darkened, vellum repair to two margins).



Provenance:

(1) The parent manuscript included the Office of St Firminus of Amiens, and it has been suggested it could have been made for the Cistercian nunnery of the Paraclete near Amiens.



(2) A substantial fragment of 128 leaves (including the present bifolium) was sold at Sotheby's on 5 July 2005, lot 90, from which it was possible to confirm that the book was Cistercian, since it included the office of St Bernard of Clairvaux, with 12 lections, and those of the Cistercian Saints William of Bourges, Malachi, and Edmond of Pontigny.



(3) Inscriptions in 18th- and 19th-century hands indicated that by that time it was at Vouvray, east of Tours in the Loire valley.



(4) Leaves from this Breviary have appeared on the market since at least as early as 1995: Maggs, Bulletin, 20, nos 42-43 and Cat.1262, 1998, no 13; thirteen more were sold at Sotheby's since 2001: one on 9 June, lot 10, and another on 6 December 2001, lot 2; two on 6 December 2005, lot 10; six on 29 June 2007, lot 4; one on 3 December 2013, lot 13; one on 7 July 2015, lot 14; and one on 23 May 2017, lot 4.





Special notice


This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Place of origin:Western Europe, France, Europe
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
10.12.2022 – 13.12.2022
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
Email
4FQ.AYGKAGLUQ@FO3G@
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