Beschreibung:

LE TELLIER DE COURTANVAULX HOURS, use of Paris, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
LE TELLIER DE COURTANVAULX HOURS, use of Paris, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Paris, c.1460]172 x 118mm. iii paper + 222 leaves + iii paper: 1 1 2 , 2-13 8 , 14-15 6 , 16 8 , 17 9 (of 8 + ix replacement blank), 18-24 8 , 25 4 , 26 2 , 27 6 , 28-29 4 , 30 9 (of 8 + ix), 15 lines written in dark brown ink in a gothic bookhand between two verticals and 16 horizontals, ruled in red, justification: 84 x 56mm, rubrics in red, text capitals touched yellow, one-line initials and line-endings in burnished gold on grounds of pink and blue patterned with white, two-and three-line initials in blue or pink patterned in white with foliate infills on burnished gold grounds, EVERY TWO-LINE INITIAL WITH A GOLD BAR AND BORDER TO LEFT MARGIN of fine burnished gold leaves and disks on hairline tendrils between acanthus leaves in gold and blue and sprays of flowers and fruit in pink, blue, green and red, TWENTY-SIX LARGE MINIATURES WITH FULL BORDERS (lacking one leaf after f.136, replaced with blank, damage to head of St Matthew f.17, slight flaking to some miniatures, small offsets on miniature f.62v, staining to lower corner of margin ff.64-65 and to some text ff.179v-180, a few borders with slight wear). 17th-century French red morocco gilt (two worm holes to spine, slightly rubbed). Brown solander box. PROVENANCE: 1. Illumination and texts indicate that the manuscript was produced in Paris. The Office of the Virgin is for the use of Paris and the Calendar is Parisian, with St Marcel of Paris (26 July and 3 November) and in gold St Genevieve (3 January and 26 November) and St Denis (9 October). These three saints are also invoked in the Litany and there is a suffrage to St Genevieve. Sts Genevieve and Denis are among the tiny yet distinguishable saints in the miniature on f.107. The Office of the Dead follows the use of Paris except that Responses V and VI are reversed. This conforms to no recorded use and may be an error. The prayer Obsecro te is in the masculine, while the choice of saints honoured with suffrages indicates a concern with ill health. A cloth with the royal fleur-de-lys of France is shown behind the coffin on f.155. 2. François-Michel-César Le Tellier, marquis de Courtanvaux (1718-1781): his armorial bookplate inside upper cover, a more elaborate version of the armorial stamp framed by military trophies used on his bindings ( Manuel de l'amateur de reliures armoriées françaises , VIII, 1929, pl.1758), above EX LIBRIS D. D. LE TELLIER DE COURTANVAUX; his armorial book stamp with scroll LE M I S DE COURTANVAUX on ff.1 and 221v; French description on f.ii. When ill health caused him to leave his successful military career in 1745, he actively pursued various branches of science: his book collecting was concentrated on science and voyages of exploration. In this he was stimulated by the inheritance in 1764 of the considerable library of his son, Charles-François-César, marquis de Montmirail. The marquis de Courtanvaulx continued to acquire books to form 'one of the outstanding libraries of the age'( op. cit. ). After his death it was sold by Jean-Luc Nyon, Catalogue des livres de la Bibliothèque de feu François-César Le Tellier Marquis de Courtanvaux , Paris, 1782, le 4 mars et les jours suivants , who prefaced the catalogue with a tribute to the library and both father and son 'who had no other object in its formation than to satisfy their liking for the Sciences and Arts and to contribute as far as they could to their perfection'. The sale included ten manuscript books of hours, in addition to three more recent ones written by Nicolas Jarry The Arcana volume was lot 41, distinguished as 'très bien conservées'. 3. Charles Barclay of Bury Hill, Dorking, Surrey (1780-1855): his armorial bookplate inside upper cover of Barclay impaling Kett, for his wife Anna Maria Kett, whom he married in 1804; inscribed 'Charles Barclay Bury Hill' on verso of front flyleaf. Bury Hill, bought in 1812 by Charles's father, R