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BOOK OF HOURS, use of Avranches, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM , [Normandy?, c.1490s].
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Avranches, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM , [Normandy?, c.1490s]. 195 x 97mm. 77 leaves, ruled space: 101 x 52mm. TWELVE LARGE ARCH-TOPPED MINIATURES WITH FULL BORDERS , five incorporating the coat of arms of the FAVIERES family of northern France (lacking the miniature opening prime, a text leaf, and the miniature opening compline, coats of arms erased, occasional marginal staining). Contemporary tooled calf over wooden boards with two brass clasps (rebacked). PROVENANCE : (1) The Book of Hours is, somewhat unusually, for the use of the diocese of Avranches, in lower Normandy, and contains an interesting mix of suffrages and prayers in Latin and the vernacular. The erased coats of arms, or , three runner beans? azur may be that of the Favières family of northern France, although the family suffered heavy casualties during the Hundred Years’ War and was all but extinguished by the 14th century. (2) JOSEPH BROOKS YATES . (3) SAMUEL HENRY THOMPSON . (4) HENRY YATES THOMPSON . (5) ALLAN HEYWOOD BRIGHT: inscriptions on lower cover. CONTENT : Calendar ff.1-6v; Hours of the Virgin, use of Avranches ff.7-26; Seven Requests, in French, and Suffrages intermingled with other prayers, including on rising and leaving the house, ff.26v-32; Hours of the Passion ff.32-39v; Abbreviated Hours of St Katherine ff.40-42; Prayer to St Sebastian, in French and Latin, ff.43-44; Suffrages intermingled with other prayers, including when to receive communion and against evil thoughts ff.45-47v; Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany ff.48-55v; Office of the Dead ff.56-68v; Obsecro te and O Intemerata ff.68v-71v; Joys of the Virgin ff.72-73v; ruled blanks ff.75-77. ILLUMINATION : An intriguing and individual production by one of the illuminators responsible for the decorative programme of the Breviary of Charles de Neufchâtel (Besançon, BM ms 69). The same palette, with bright greens, blues and reds touched with streaks of gold, and the same somewhat static treatment of the figures, inherited from the rouennaise tradition established by the Master of the Echevinage de Rouen in the late 1450s can be found in parallel miniatures in the Besançon manuscript depicting the Visitation, the Adoration of the Magi, the Presentation in the Temple and the Three Living and the Three Dead. Though to different effect, it seems likely that this Norman illuminator was also influenced in the setting of his miniatures by the Tours school of Jean Fouquet and Jean Bourdichon the maid drying the clothes of the new-born John the Baptist (f.28) is reminiscent of the same scene in Hours of Etienne Chevalier (Musée Condé, Chantilly), while the armour of St Michael Archangel (f.31), with its sophisticated ‘ciselures’, is based on a Bourdichon model of the saint. The subjects of the miniatures are as follows: Annunciation f.7, Visitation f.12, Annunciation to the shepherds f.19, Adoration of the magi f.20v, Presentation in the temple f.22, Flight into Egypt f.23v, Birth of John the Baptist f.28, St Michael f.31, St Sebastian f.43, St Susanna f.45, David and Bathsheba f.48, Three living and three dead f.56.