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Detailed record for Additional 29433
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| Title |
Book of Hours, Paris Use |
| Origin |
France, Central (Paris) |
| Date |
Between 1406 and 1407 |
| Language |
Latin and French |
| Script |
Gothic |
| Artists |
Master of the Brussels Initials and associates; a follower of the Luçon Master |
| Decoration |
15 large miniatures at the beginnings of the offices, with full borders in colours on gold grounds, including human figures, birds and insects, some with historiated initials (ff. 20, 43v, 56, 62, 67, 71v, 76, 83, 89, 107v, 111v, 115v, 168, 174, 192). 38 small miniatures or historiated initials in colours with gold (ff. 13, 14v, 16v, 18, 161, 164, 178, 186, 188v, 193, 193v, 194v, 195, 196, 197v, 198v, 199v, 200, 200v, 201v, 202v, 204, 205, 206, 207, 208, 208v, 210, 210v, 211v, 212, 213, 214, 214v, 215v, 216, 217, 218) . The calendar includes 12 miniatures of the labours of the months and full borders with suns with rays in gold at the outer corners (ff. 1-12v). Numerous unpainted shields of arms included in borders and initials (e.g., f. 20), one with red and blue (f. 71v). Text throughout framed in gold, with decoration in colours, surrounded by rinceau borders incorporating hybrid creatures, birds, insects and flowers in colours with gold. Numerous framed initials in blue or rose on gold grounds with decoration in red, blue and white. Rubrics in gold. |
| Dimensions in mm |
225 x 160 (180 x 140) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 219 (+ 2 unfoliated paper flyleaves and 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves at the beginning and 2 unfoliated parchment flyleaves and 3 unfoliated paper flyleaves at the end + 1 unfoliated parchment leaf after ff. 19, 88, 167) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
Post-1600. Red leather with gold tooling. |
| Provenance |
The Master of the Brussels Initials has been identified with Giovanni di fra' Silvestro, an illuminator for the Confraternita' di Santa Maria della Morte, Bologna (Massimo Medica, 'Un illustre committente fiorentino per Giovanni di fra Silvestro: Donato Acciaivoli', in Il Codice miniati per la chiesa, per la città, per la corte in Europa, ed. by Giordana Mariani Canova, and Alessandra Perriccioli Saggese (Padua: Biblioteca di Arte, 2014), pp. 355-37).
A shield on f. 71v is quarterly, I and 4 gules, 2 and 3 azure with no charges; the remaining shields are not painted.
Henry Perkins (b. 1778, d.1855), brewer and bibliophile of Hanworth Park, Middlesex..
Algernon Perkins (d. 1870) of Hanworth Park, Middlesex, by descent; his sale at auction by Gadsden, Ellis and Co in the Great Library, Hanworth Park, 3 June, 1873, lot 534; bought by the British Museum for £400. |
| Notes |
Contents:
ff. 1-12v: Calendar with French saints;
ff. 13-19v: Gospel readings;
ff. 20-88v: Hours of the Virgin;
ff. 89-107: Penitential Psalms and Litany;
ff. 107v-111: Hours of the Cross, preceded by a notice of an indulgence granted on the occasion of the miracle of the Mass of St Gregory (f. 107v);
ff. 111-115: Hours of the Holy Spirit;
ff. 115-160: Vigils for the Dead;
ff. 161-167: Prayers: 'Obsecro te' and 'O intemerata';
ff. 168-173v: The Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, in French;
f. 174-177v: The Five Wounds of our Lord, in French;
f. 178-191v: Offices of the Trinity, of the Virgin, of the Cross, and of the Dead;
f. 192-217v: Suffrages to the Trinity and Saints;
ff. 218-219; Prayers.
On the Master of the Brussels Initials see Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati, (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004). His name comes from the fifteen historiated initials he painted in a Book of Hours commissioned by Jean, Duke of Berry, now Brussels, Bibliotheque Royale, MS 11060-61. According to Bollati, he moved from Bologna to the Ile-de-France, where he adapted the more pastel and subtle colors of French court illumination. To the many manuscripts that he decorated in France, he introduced not only stocky Bolognese figure types but also an exuberant style of border decoration. All but 7 miniatures are from the workshop of this illuminator.
Five miniatures are by a follower of the Luçon Master (ff. 202v, 205, 211v, 212 and 214), one by an Italianate French painter (f. 83). A minor French painter worked on f. 195 together with the Brussels Master (see Meiss French Painting: Late XIV Century(1967), pp. 125-26) |
| Select bibliography |
The British Museum Catalogue of Additions to the Manuscripts, 1854-1875 (London: British Museum, 1877), pp. 635-36.
Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late XIV Century and the Patronage of the Duke (London: Phaidon, 1967), I, 325-36.
Robert G. Calkins, Illuminated Books of the Middle Ages (London: Thames & Hudson, 1983), pp. 250-57, fig. 137,140-58, pl. 158.
Janet Backhouse, Books of Hours (London: British Library, 1985), fig. 54, 1.
Janet Backhouse, Illuminations from Books of Hours (London: British Library, 2004), no. 88.
Robert G. Calkins, 'An Italian in Paris: The Master of the Brussels Initials and His Participation in the French Book Industry', Gesta , 20.1 (1981), 223-32 (p. 223).
Allen S. Farber, 'Considering a Marginal Master: The Work of an Early Fifteenth-Century, Parisian Manuscript Decorator', Gesta 32.1 (1993), 21-39 (pp. 30, figs 325-26, 443, fig 718 passim).
Paris 1400: Les arts sous Charles VI (Paris: Réunion des musées nationaux, 2004), no. 169B [exhibition catalogue].
A l'Escu de France: Guillebert de Mets et la peinture de livres a Gand a l'epoque de Jan van Eyck (1410-1450), ed. by Dominique Vanwijnsberghe and Erik Verroken, 2 vols (Brussels: IRPA, 2017), I, p. 339, n. 61 |
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f. 2
February |
f. 2
Fishing |
f. 11v
Calendar page |
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f. 13
John and the eagle |
f. 20
The Annunciation |
f. 56
Nativity |
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f. 62
The Shepherds |
f. 67
Adoration of the Magi |
f. 67
Adoration of the Magi |
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f. 71v
The Presentation in the Temple |
f. 89
Torments of hell |
f. 107v
Man of Sorrows |
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f. 111v
Pentecost |
f. 112
Text page |
f. 112
Detail |
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f. 168
The Fountain of all Virtue |
f. 192
Detail |
f. 192v
Terrapin and parrot |
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f. 204
Blaise and Vincent |
f. 207
George and the dragon |
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