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BOOK OF HOURS, in Latin and Dutch, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
BOOK OF HOURS, in Latin and Dutch, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Flanders, possibly Bruges, c.1438] 196 x 135mm. ii paper + ii + 128 + iv leaves: mostly in gatherings of 8, with miniatures on inserted singletons, likely lacking 2 inserted leaves with miniatures before ff.49 and 118, catchwords in lower margins of final versos of some gatherings, 21 lines written in brown ink in a gothic bookhand between two verticals and 22 horizontals ruled in pink, rubrics in red, versal initials touched red, one-line initials alternately of blue with red penwork flourishing and of burnished gold flourished black, two- to four-line initials of burnished gold on grounds and infills of pink and blue with white decoration, TWO LARGE INITIALS with pink staves on blue and burnished gold grounds with trefoil sprays in the infill and accompanying single border of bar and foliate sprays in burnished gold, TWENTY-TWO LARGE INITIALS WITH FULL-PAGE BORDERS made up of three-quarter baguettes surrounded by sprays of naturalistic flowers, fruit, acorns and blue, green, orange and red acanthus interspersed with hairline tendrils with golden leaves, TWENTY FULL-PAGE ARCH-TOPPED MINIATURES WITH SIMILAR FULL-PAGE BORDERS (occasional smudging, darkening of vellum or staining, noticeably to margin of f.1, slight cropping to outer edge of a few borders, some fading or loss of pigment, noticeably to the Virgin's robe in some miniatures, to the cushion in the Pentecost miniature and God the Father in the Agony in the Garden). 17th-century blind-stamped vellum boards, the panelled covers with central lozenge-shaped cartouche and floral cornerpieces, lettered on spine in ink (light surface wear and stain). Modern box. PROVENANCE: 1. The generalised calendar in Dutch and the litany include saints appropriate to the southern Netherlands, including Sts Bavo (1 October) and St Donatian (14 October) in red. Of note is St Houdeburghe in red on 4 August, which may refer to St Walburga. The devotional requirements of the original owner have been accommodated by a careful selection of prayers in Dutch. 2. Prayers in Latin have been added in a near contemporary hand on blank leaves, with spaces left for large initials. 3. Three ownership inscriptions on the first blank vellum leaf chart the history of this Hours in the 16th century. The first refers to Helena Denys, alive in 1545 as the widow of Jan du Quesnoyt, who is living in Antwerp in the Steenhouwers Vest and promises a reward of wine for the safe return of her book: 'Item desen bouck hoort towe de Huysvrouwe Jans du Kenoyt Tot antv[er]pen wonnende of de steenhouwers vesten so wien vint die gheslen weder en men sal gherne de wyn scincken'. Since 'huysvrouwe', and the proper names of the address are written in a different script over erasures, the book presumably belonged to Jan du Quesnoyt himself or a named first wife at an earlier address. The second refers to Anna van Grevenbroeck (d.1577), since 1564 the third wife of Jan van den Dycke (d.1572), councillor in the Chambre des comptes in Brussels, where they were both buried in the church of the Sablon; among the many lordships he had accumulated was that of Zandvliet by Antwerp. Jan van den Dycke's first wife, married in 1525, was Johanna Maria van der Genst (d.1541), the mother of Charles V's illegitimate daughter, Margaret, Duchess of Parma and Governor of the Netherlands for Philip II 1559-1567; the couple had nine children who benefitted from their royal connection. Jan van den Dycke's second wife, married in 1545, was Cecile, heiress of Jan du Quesnoyt and Helena Denys, who bore him no children, so that he could pass her mother's book of hours to his third wife, who was also childless (see F. van der Taelen, 'Notices sur Jeanne-Marie van der Genst, mère de Marguerite d'Autriche', Annales de l'Académie d'archéologie de Belgique , XXXIV, 1878, pp.295-355): 'Nu der huysvrouwen M r Jans vanden Dycke Raet Anna van Grevenbroeck'. The third, dated the year after A