Workshop of the Mazarine Master - photo 1
Workshop of the Mazarine Master - photo 2

Workshop of the Mazarine Master

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£ 1 764
Auction dateClassic
12.12.2022 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 869523
Lot 116 | Workshop of the Mazarine Master
Workshop of the Mazarine Master
A bifolium from a Book of Hours, Use of Paris, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. Paris, 1408.
From an extremely high quality dated manuscript produced by the Parisian scribes, illuminators and border artists patronised by the Duc de Berry.

Each leaf c. 180 × 135mm. 15 lines of fine formal gothic script, the text comprising parts of the Office of the Dead, including prayers that precede the first lesson (‘[ve]niat. Oremus. Oracio. Inclina domine aurem tuam [...] cunctorum tribue peccatorum’) and from the end of the first lesson to the versicle following the second (‘quid sicut dies hominis […] Dum veneris in novissimo die’), a catchword and traces of an erased foliation, ‘112’ and ‘119’, show that this was the outer bifolium of a gathering, illuminated with foliate initials and full borders of fine ivy-leaf, and a few line-fillers (the edges damaged by water in 1846 (see Provenance) affecting the borders and gutter but not significantly affecting the text).

Provenance:
(1) From a manuscript whose colophon states that it was written in 1408, when the bridges of Paris were swept away in a storm (this colophon is reproduced in the Arcana sale catalogue, Christie’s, 7 July 2010, lot 22); an almost identical inscription occurs in Bodleian Library, MS. Douce 144 (on which see M. Hofmann in Mélanges en l’honneur de François Avril (Brepols, 2007), pp. 99–109); both manuscripts were written by the same scribe, and the illuminator known as the Mazarine Master (a collaborator with the Boucicaut Master and a contemporary of the Limbourg brothers), participated in both manuscripts.
(2) John Boykett Jarman (d. 1864); damaged by flooding in 1846; his sale at Sotheby’s, 13 June 1864, lot 47, bought by:
(3) Edward Arnold (d. 1911), of Dorking; sold by his son Andrew William Arnold (d. 1952) at Sotheby’s, 6 May, 1929, lot 240, bought by Sutton.
(4) Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875–1968); his MS W.103; he had most of the miniatures separately mounted; the textblock was in the posthumous Chester Beatty sale at Sotheby’s, 24 June, 1969, lot 58, bought by Alan Thomas for £900; and individual leaves were then widely dispersed.
(5) Colker MS 176; acquired in 1970 from Alan Thomas.

For most manuscripts the water-damaged margins would be a serious defect, but in the present case they serve to make it immediately recognisable as having been involved in one of the most famous bibliophile disasters of the 19th century – the flooding of the collection of John Boykett Jarman – and thus increase its interest and romantic associations.

Leaves from this very well known manuscript are now scattered around the globe, with examples at the Princeton University Art Museum, Cornell University, Melbourne University, Trinity College, Dublin, and at the Ackland Museum Chapel Hill. A few leaves have been re-acquired in recent years by the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin. For a more detailed description, including a list of the parent manuscript’s miniatures and their present locations, see P. Kidd, McCarthy Collection, III (2021), no 92.
Genre:Religious genre
Place of origin:France
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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28.11.2022 – 12.12.2022
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