Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM, [Amiens, or North-Eastern France, circa 1300] 20 leaves only, 120x84mm, 11 lines, justification 63x46mm, written in black ink in a gothic textura, rubrics in red, initials in gold or blue, with penwork flourishing, 14 two-line initials in gold, red or blue on contrasting ground with white tracery, inhabited mostly by human heads and rabbits, line-fillers in blue, white and gold, 14 three-quarter cusped baguette borders, ornamented with dragons and drolleries of jugglers, fools, monks, noble ladies and grotesques. 2 SIX-LINE HISTORIATED INITIALS, with full cusped bar borders, decorated with gold, and supporting various animals, monkeys fighting, rabbits and dogs TEXT: The fragment comprises 8 leaves from Prime (complete); 6 leaves from Compline (lacking the end); 6 leaves from Penitential Psalms and Litany. It seems likely that the Hours are for the use of Amiens, St.Omer or Arras. ILLUMINATION: The two extant historiated initials show (1) The Nativity. A very finely executed round 'D', the Virgin lying in bed, a sitting Joseph at her side asleep, two asses looking over a gothic brick wall, on burnished gold (slight crease and minute flaking). (2) The Presentation in the Temple (the wrong image for Compline!), the Virgin and Child, followed by a handmaiden carrying a basket, facing Symeon the priest, on burnished gold ground (rubbed, particularly the figure of the priest, also the border). The artist may come from the same, or a related workshop, as in a Book of Hours for the use of St.Omer in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore (W.90), cf. L.M.C.Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery no.54