Hufnagel notation

Lot 58
08.11.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 500
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1053172
Lot 58 | Hufnagel notation
Estimate value
£ 1 000 – 1 500
Hufnagel notation
A bifolium from an Antiphonal, in Latin, manuscript on vellum [Germany or Flanders, 15th century]
Hufnagel notation on a bifolium from an Antiphonal.

352 x 232 mm, a bifolium, 12 lines written in black ink in a Gothic bookhand, 12 lines of music in Hufnagel notation on a 5-line staff, C- and F-clefs indicated, large initials in blue, red or brown ink, the latter with calligraphic flourishing, rubrics in red, capitals touched in red (recovered from use as pastedowns, some cropping and staining, vellum repairs to the inner margin of the first leaf and upper corner of the second, some holes, especially to the first leaf). Modern marbled paper boards.

Provenance:
(1) 17th-century inscriptions on f.1. The earliest one reads 'Dominus Brecht anno 1633'. On the recto, two inscriptions in French: 'Comptes des ?Lecteurs et [...] L'hospital 1666' and 'Comptes [...] ?faites pour l'an 1666'.

(2) Erik Edzard Floris Folkard von Scherling (1907-1956). Son of the Swedish Consul at Rotterdam, von Scherling worked for the bookseller Jacob Ginsberg in Leiden, where he specialised in Oriental books, and learnt Latin and Arabic. By the age of 21 he was dealing in manuscripts on his own account and already had an international clientele. According to a pencil inscription in the inside upper cover these leaves were purchased with nos. 2539 (a 14th-century liturgical leaf), 2551 (a 15th-century English fragment), and 2564 (a 13th-century French leaf of Canon Law) in von Scherling's Rotulus: A bulletin for Manuscript collectors, VII, 1954. If among the same group, these could have been part of 2557 - a group of 16 leaves from the 11th to the 16th centuries, with '13th-15th century samples with music on 4 and 5 bars'; 2573, described as two connected leaves from a 15th-century Antiphonal with consecutive text, with 'fol. 1r and 2v faded and dusty' (as here), only the musical notation is described as being on a 4-line staff, and the height of the leaves is a little shorter; or 2575, 'Collection of 25 miscellaneous leaves', priced 'f 35 -' (the same price as indicated in pencil on the paper flyleaf in the present lot).

(3) 20th-century description in French on inside upper cover: 'Deux feuillets en parchemin provenant d'un antiphonaire à l'usage de Liège [...]', the localisation likely based on the inclusion of the Office of St Servatius.

(4) Maggs Bros., acquired in 1992 by:

(5) Schøyen Collection, MS 1589.

Text:
The first leaf begins in the Feast of St Servatius of Tongeren (13 May): '[O per omnia lauda]bilem virum cuius meritis ab omni clade liberantur' followed by the antiphon 'Dum iret Sanctus Sevacius pontifex ab urbe tongrensi', the Feast of St Gengulphus of Burgundy (11 May), St Petronilla (31 May), continuing on the second leaf with St Boniface (5 June), and St Vitus (15 June), ending 'ut te custodiam usque in diem exi[tus tui]'.
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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