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Detailed record for Sloane 2468


Part 1	ff. 2-185
	Title		Book of Hours, Use of Sarum (the 'Hours of the Umfray Family')
	Origin		France, Central (Paris)
	Date		c. 1420
	Language		Latin
	Script		Gothic
	Artists		Attributed to the Master of the Royal Alexander who is probably identical to the Harvard Hannibal Master (see Backhouse 2004).
	Decoration		16 full-page miniatures, accompanied by large decorated initials and full foliate borders, in colours and gold (ff. 14, 16, 18, 20, 22, 32v, 51, 57v, 62v, 67v, 72v, 87, 115, 163, 180, 184); 1 miniature at the beginning of Compline in the Hours of the Virgin missing (after f. 79). Smaller decorated initials with foliate extensions into the inner margins, in colours and gold; all text pages with decorated initials with partial foliate borders, in colours and gold. Small initials and line-fillers in gold on red and blue grounds.
	Dimensions in mm		200 x 140 (100 x 65)

Part 2	188-239
	Title		Psalms of the Passion, etc.
	Origin		England
	Date		2nd quarter of the 15th century
	Language		Latin
	Script		Gothic
	Scribe		A different scribe than in the first part
	Artists		The English artist is imitating the French style of the first part; therefore this part was probably added slightly later.
	Decoration		3 full-page miniatures, accompanied by large decorated initials, the third including a nun in prayer, and full foliate borders, in colours and gold (ff. 188, 205, 227v). 14 large historiated initials, accompanied by partial foliate borders, in colours and gold (ff. 229v, 230v, 231v, 232, 233, 233v, 234, 234v, 235, 235v, 236, 236v, 237, 238). Smaller decorated initials with foliate extensions into the inner margins, in colours and gold; all text pages with decorated initials with partial foliate borders, in colours and gold. Small initials and line-fillers in gold on red and blue grounds.
	Dimensions in mm		200 x 140 (100 x 65)

Official foliation		ff. 239 (+ 1 original leaf after f. 187; + 4 paper flyleaves at the beginning, and 4 at the end)
Form		Parchment codex
Binding		BM/BL in-house.
Provenance		Erased entries in the calendar commemorating the marriage of John and Eleanor Umfray in 1453 and the birth of their daughter Joan in the following year: 'Nata fuit Johanna primogenisa Johannis Umvray in a^o r. r. h. sexti xxxii^o' (f. 2), and 'Nupcie sacre fuerunt …ser Johannem Umfray et Alianorem uxorem eius in anno regis henrici sexti xxx^ano primo' (f. 5v). Inscriptions in English, 15th-century (f. 1r-v). Sir Hans Sloane (b. 1660, d. 1753), baronet, physician and collector. Purchased as part of the Sloane collection from Sloane's executors and incorporated into the newly founded British Museum in 1753.
Notes		Added prayer in the first part by the scribe of the second part (ff. 185-187v).
Select bibliography		Catalogue of Additional Manuscripts: Sloane 2268-2496 (London: British Museum unpublished manuscript of unedited descriptions, no date), no. 2468 [available in The British Library Manuscripts Reading Room]. Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 17. Janet Backhouse, Books of Hours (London: British Library, 1985), p. 52, fig. 51. Janet Backhouse, Illumination from Books of Hours (London: British Library, 2004), fig. 4. Gregory T. Clark, Art in a Time of War (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies, 2016), p. 288.