Beschreibung:

Leaf from an early Book of Hours, with a yellow rabbit, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, late thirteenth or perhaps early fourteenth century] Single leaf, with single column, 19 lines in a professional early gothic bookhand, capitals touched in red, rubrics in red, one-line initials in red or blue with contrasting penwork, four large illuminated initials in blue or pink with white penwork (those on recto enclosing sprays of coloured acanthus leaves; those on verso with dragon-headed lacertine animals), all enclosed on burnished gold grounds with angular edges and black penwork dots at their apexes (this a rare and distinctive feature, compare Walters Art Gallery, W 45, a north-eastern French book, probably Cambrai, in last quarter of thirteenth century, where the same is achieved with bezants: Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, I, 1989, pp. 107-111 and fig. 94), one small yellow rabbit with long whiskers precisely picked out in upper margin, some small scuffing to shoulders and hindleg of rabbit (with very small losses), trimmed at top with top of one ear and very top of one initial on verso wanting, else fine and good condition, 113 by 87 mm. The rabbit was a common addition to early gothic manuscript borders, either as the subject of hunting by dogs, or as here on its own, most probably as a symbol of sexual fecundity (see C.K. Abraham, Myth and Symbol: the rabbit in medieval France in Studies in Philology 60, 1963, pp. 584-97).