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Detailed record for Royal 19 B XV
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| Title |
Apocalypse, with commentary (The 'Queen Mary Apocalypse'), with the prologue of Gilbert de la Porrée translated in French. |
| Origin |
England, S. E. (London), or East Anglia |
| Date |
1st quarter of the 14th century |
| Language |
French |
| Script |
Gothic cursive |
| Artists |
Follower of the Queen Mary Master |
| Decoration |
73 miniatures in colours and gold. Initials in gold on blue and rose grounds with penwork decoration in white, some with marginal extensions forming partial borders. Paraphs in rose or blue. |
| Dimensions in mm |
305 x 210 (210 x 130) |
| Official foliation |
ff. 45 (+ 3 unfoliated modern parchment flyleaves at the beginning and at the end, and 2 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf at the beginning) |
| Form |
Parchment codex |
| Binding |
BM/BL in-house. 19th century. |
| Provenance |
The Old Royal Library (the English Royal Library): perhaps to be identified with one of two 'Lapocalipse' included in the list of books at Richmond Palace in 1535, no. 74, or 96; Westminster inventory number 'no. 22' (f. 1), included in the inventory of books in the Upper Library at Westminster of 1542; and in the catalogue of 1666, Royal Appendix 71, ff. 14 or 15.
Presented to the British Museum by George II in 1757 as part of the Old Royal Library. |
| Notes |
Full digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Digitised Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts.
According to Sandler 1986, illuminated by three artists: The Queen Mary Master (ff. 1-16v), Hand II (ff. 17-24v, 30, 34-45v), Hand III (25-29v, 31v-32v). The attribution to the Queen Mary Master or to his workshop has been rejected by Dennison 1994 on a stylistic and technical basis; Hand II has been related to Royal D II (The 'Welles Apocalypse') and Hand III to Brussels, Royal Library II 282 (Apocalypse and Lumiere as lais).
The manuscript was mistakenly related to Pierre Gilbert, illuminator, notary, and libraire of the University of Paris (c. 1415-21), by d'Ancona and Aeschlimann 1949, followed by Meiss 1967 and Rouse 2000.
Guide letters for initials. |
| Select bibliography |
M. Digby Wyatt, The Art of Illuminating (London: Dan and Son Lithographers, 1860; repr. Studio Editions, 1987), p. 38.
Facsimiles of Manuscripts and Inscriptions Series one, ed. by E. A. Bond and E. M. Thompson (London: The Paleographical Society, 1873-83), III, pl. 223.
Samuel Berger, La bible française au moyen âge (Paris: Champion, 1884), p. 86.
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. 8.
Edward Maude Thompson, English Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Kegan Paul, 1895), pl. 16.
H. Omont, 'Les manuscrits français des rois d'Angleterre au château de Richmond', in Etudes romanes dédiés à Gaston Paris (Paris: É. Bouillon, 1891), pp. 1-13 (p. 9).
L. Delisle and P. Meyer, L'Apocalypse en français au XIIIe siècle (Bibl. Nat. Fr. 403) (Paris: Firmin Didot, 1901), no. 25.
[George Warner], Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series I, (London: British Museum, 1907), pl. 13.
J. A. Herbert, Illuminated Manuscripts (London: Methuen, 1911), p. 217.
George Warner, Queen Mary's Psalter (London: British Museum, 1912), p. 7.
Schools of Illumination: Reproductions from Manuscripts in the British Museum, 6 vols (London: British Museum, 1914-1930), III: English A.D. 1300 to 1350 (1921), pl. 14.
George F. Warner and Julius P. Gilson, Catalogue of Western Manuscripts in the Old Royal and King’s Collections, 4 vols (London: British Museum, 1921), II, p. 329-30.
[J. A. Herbert], British Museum: Reproductions from Illuminated Manuscripts, Series 1, 3rd edn (London: British Museum, 1923), pl. 13.
[J. A. Herbert], Illuminated Manuscripts and Bindings of Manuscripts Exhibited in The Grenville Library, Guide to the Exhibited Manuscripts, 3 (Oxford: British Museum, 1923), no. 26.
Eric. G. Millar, English Illuminated Manuscripts of the XIVth and XVth Century (Paris: Van Oest, 1928), pl. 41-44.
Elfrida O. Sounders, English Illumination, 2 vols (Paris: Pegasus Press, 1928), I, pp. 84, 90-91, 95.
Montague Rhodes James, The Apocalypse in Art, The Schweich Lectures of the British Academy, 1927 (London: British Academy, 1931), no. 25.
Guide to an Exhibition of English Art gathered from Various Departments and held in the Prints and Drawings Gallery (London: British Museum, 1934.), no. 121.
Joan Evans, English Art 1307-1461, Oxford History of English Art, 5 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1949), p. 16, n. 2.
Paolo d'Ancona and Erhard Aeschlimann, Dictionnaire des miniaturistes du moyen age et de la renaissance dans les differentes contre´es de l’Europe (Milan: Hoepli, 1949), p. 169.
R. Freyhan, 'Joachism and the English Apocalypse', Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 18 (1955), 211-44 (pp. 216, n. 5, 221, 288, n. 2).
Margaret Rickert, La miniatura inglese, 2 vols (Milan: Electa, 1961), II: Dal XIII al XV secolo, pp. 9, 12, 21, pl. 34.
Margaret Rickert, Painting in Britain: the Middle Ages, 2nd edn (London: Penguin Books, 1965), p. 143, pl. 124.
Millard Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late XIV Century and the Patronage of the Duke, 2 vols, National Gallery of Art Kress Foundation Studies in the History of European Art, 2 (London: Thames and Hudson, 1967), I, p. 362, n. 16.
Francis Wormald, 'A Short Tract on the Manuscripts with Pictures by the Master of Queen Mary's Psalter: Some Pictures of the Manuscripts in an English XIVth century manuscript', The Walpole Society, 41 (1966-68) 39-45 (p. 40).
Francis Klingender, Animals in Art and Thought to the end of the Middle Ages, ed. by Evelyn Antal and John Harthan (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1971), p. 406, pl. 238.
A. H. Laing, 'The Queen Mary Apocalypse, London, British Museum, Royal MS 19 B. XV' (unpublished doctoral dissertation, John Hopkins University, Baltimore, 1971).
P. Lasko and N. J. Morgan, Medieval Art in East Anglia 1300-1520 (Norwich: Jarrold and Sons, 1973), no. 15 [exhibition catalogue].
W. B. Yapp, 'The Birds of English Medieval Manuscripts', Journal of Medieval History, 5 (1979) 315-48 (pp. 326, 335, 336, 346).
Nigel Morgan, Early Gothic Manuscripts, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 4 (London Harvey Miller, 1982-1988), II: 1250-1285, p. 40 n. 75, 64, 74, 176.
Richard Kenneth Emmerson and Suzanne Lewis, 'Census and Bibliography of Medieval Manuscripts containing Apocalypse Illustrations, ca. 800-1500 II', Traditio: Studies in Ancient and Medieval History, Thought and Religion, 41 (1985), 367-409, no. 75.
Lucy Freeman Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385, 2 vols, A Survey of Manuscripts Illuminated in the British Isles, 5 (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), I, no. 61.
Suzanne Lewis, 'The Apocalypse of Margaret of York', in Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and the Visions of Tondal, ed. by Thomas Kren (Malibu: J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992), pp. 77-88 (p. 87, n. 14).
Lynda Dennison, 'The Apocalypse, British Library, Royal Ms. 19 B XV: A Reassessment of its Artistic Context in Early Fourteenth-Century English Manuscript Illumination', The British Library Journal, 20 (1994) 35-54.
Janet Backhouse, The Illuminated Page: Ten Centuries of Manuscript Painting in the British Library (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997), no. 90.
Nigel Morgan, 'French Interpretations of English Apocalpyses', in England and the Continent in the Middle Ages: Studies in Memory of Andrew Martindale, Proceedings of the 1996 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by John Mitchell and Matthew Moran, Harlaxton Medieval Studies, 8 (Stamford: Shaun Tyas, 2000), pp. 137-56 (p. 144 n. 24).
The Apocalypse and the Shape of Things to Come, ed. by Frances Carey (London: British Museum, 1999), p. 85 no. 15 [exhibition catalogue].
Richard H. Rouse and Mary A. Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris 1200-1500, 2 vols (Turnhout: Harvey Miller, 2000), II, p. 112.
The Libraries of King Henry VIII, ed. by J. P. Carley, Corpus of British Medieval Library Catalogues, 7 (London: The British Library, 2000), H1.68, H2.22.
Christopher de Hamel, The British Library Guide to Manuscript Illumination: History and Techniques (London: British Library, 2001), pl. 43.
Medieval Mastery: Book Illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold 800-1475 (Leuven, 2002), p. 133.
Alixe Bovey, Monsters and Grotesques in Medieval Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2002), pp. 28-29, pl. 24.
Alixe Bovey, The Chaworth Roll: A Fourteenth-Century Genealogy of the Kings of England (London: Sam Fogg, 2004), p. 13, fig. 7 [with further bibiliography].
Nancy L. Ross, 'Forgotten Revelation: The Iconic Development of the Anglo-Norman Verse and Early Prose Apocalypse Manuscripts' (unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Cambridge, 2006), pp. 16, passim.
Kathleen L. Scott, Tradition and Innovation in Later Medieval English Manuscripts (London: British Library, 2007), p. 159 n. 173.
Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination (London: British Library, 2011), no. 86 [exhibition catalogue].
Renana Bartal, Gender, piety, and production in fourteenth-century English Apocalypse manuscripts (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2016), pp. 122-25, 126-33, 172. |
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f. 1
Paul preaching |
f. 1v
John |
f. 2
John |
| |
f. 2v
John |
f. 2v
John |
f. 3
John |
| |
f. 5v
John |
f. 5v
John |
f. 7v
God and the Elders |
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f. 8
God enthroned |
f. 9
God enthroned |
f. 9v
White Horse and Red Horse |
| |
f. 9v
White Horse |
f. 9v
White Horse and Red Horse |
f. 10
Black Horse |
| |
f. 10
Black Horse |
f. 10v
Rider on a Pale Horse |
f. 10v
Rider on a Pale Horse |
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f. 11
Five souls |
f. 11
Five souls |
f. 11v
Earthquake |
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f. 12
Ship |
f. 12v
God enthroned |
f. 13
John and Elder |
| |
ff. 13v-14
Distribution of Trumpets and First Trumpet |
f. 13v
God the Father |
f. 13v
God the Father |
| |
f. 14
First Trumpet |
f. 14
First Trumpet |
f. 14v
Second vision |
| |
f. 15
Third and fourth visions |
f. 15v
Fifth vision |
f. 16
Sixth vision |
| |
f. 16v
Horses and their riders |
f. 17
Angel |
f. 17v
Seven thunders |
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f. 18
Flowering reed |
f. 18v
John |
f. 19
Witnesses |
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f. 20
Death of the Witnesses |
f. 20v
The Woman |
f. 21
Dragon and woman in bed |
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ff. 22v-23
Dragon and beast |
f. 22v
Men battling with a dragon |
f. 22v
Men battling with a dragon |
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f. 23
Beast and dragon |
f. 23v
Beast |
f. 24v
Beast |
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f. 25
John and lamb |
f. 26
John and angel |
f. 26v
Babylon falling |
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f. 27
Son of Man |
f. 27v
Angel with a sickle |
f. 28
Seven angels |
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f. 28v
Lion-headed beast |
f. 29
First vial |
f. 29v
Second and third vials |
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f. 30
Fourth and fifth vials |
f. 30v
Frogs |
f. 31v
Seventh vial |
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f. 31v
Seventh vial |
f. 32
Whore of Babylon |
f. 32v
Whore of Babylon |
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f. 34
Ruins of Babylon |
f. 34v
Gate of Babylon |
f. 35v
Angel with a millstone |
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f. 36
God enthroned |
f. 37
Rider on the white horse and his followers |
f. 37v
Angel, birds and a rabbit |
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f. 38
Rider on the white horse |
f. 38v
Angel with key and dragon |
f. 39
Judges |
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f. 40
God |
f. 40v
Heaven and Earth |
f. 40v
New Earth |
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f. 41v
John and angel |
f. 43v
God the Father |
f. 44v
John |
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f. 45
John |
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