Beschreibung:

THE MOLÉ-BOUCHERAT HOURS, use of Troyes, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Troyes, c.1420] 208 x 147mm. iii+177 leaves: 1-2 6, 3-6 8, 7 7(of 8, lacking viii), 8-10 8, 11 6, 12-13 8, 14 2, 15 8, 16 3(of 4, i cancelled blank), 17 7(of 8, lacking iii), 18 7(of 8, viii cancelled blank), 19 7(of 8, lacking i), 20-24 8, 25 6(of 8, vi and viii cancelled blanks), three of the lacking folios with miniatures, catchwords survive at the centre lower edge of the final versos of some gatherings, pencil foliation 1-176 with two folios numbered 5 followed here, 15 lines in brown ink written in a gothic bookhand between two verticals and 16 horizontals ruled in pink, justification: 95 x 68mm, text capitals touched yellow, one-line initials of burnished gold against grounds and infills of pink and blue with white decoration, line-endings of the same colours, two- and three-line initials with staves alternately of pink or blue against burnished gold grounds with an ivy-leaf spray in the infill, FULL-PAGE BORDER ON EVERY PAGE with sprays of golden leaves and trefoils on hairline tendrils with terminals of naturalistically coloured flowers and fruit, a bar border in the outer margin, TWENTY-FOUR SMALL CALENDAR MINIATURES within similar borders and TWENTY-ONE LARGE ARCH-TOPPED MINIATURES accompanied by full-page borders with baguettes of monochrome-patterned pink and blue and burnished gold with panels of interlace and curling acanthus leaf terminals and sprays of golden leaves on hairline stems, FULL-PAGE ARMORIAL MINIATURE, (slight smudging to ink outlining on some folios, gold from borders of versos sometimes showing through, tiny pigment losses from a few miniatures and affecting the face of the Virgin on f.76 and the body of Christ on f.107v). Modern dark red morocco by C.M. Ullman, morocco-backed box. A SPLENDID BOOK OF HOURS EXTENSIVELY ILLUMINATED BY THE ROHAN MASTER PROVENANCE: 1. Presumably made for the lady, in bourgeois dress, kneeling before the Trinity on f.107v. She was presumably resident in the diocese of Troyes and may have been an ancestor of Guillaume II Molé or Simone Le Boucherat. 2. Guillaume II Molé and his wife Simone Le Boucherat: the armorial frontispiece added on f.iii by an illuminator of c.1480 shows two shields, one with the arms of Molé, gules , two stars or above a crescent argent , the other with these arms impaling Boucherat, azure , a cock or combed gules . The shields are suspended from a helm with blue and gold mantling and with the crest of a half-length naked youth, they are flanked by two naked youth supporters. The base of the helm carries the name GUILLERMUS. M. and the couple represented by these arms is undoubtedly Guillaume II Molé and his wife Simone Le Boucherat who married in 1467. The Molés and Boucherats were two of the most eminent families of Troyes at this date. Guillaume was the son of another Guillaume, who died in 1459, and his wife Jeanne Lésguisey. Jeanne's earlier marriage had provided a half-brother for Guillaume II, Guyot II Le Peley. It was for this bourgeois of Troyes that the illuminator of the present armorial miniature painted a copy of Pierre Michault's Le Doctrinal rural and La danse aux aveugles (Paris, BnF, fr.1654) after which he has been named the Master of the Michault of Guyot Le Peley: F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les Manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520 (1993), pp.186-187. For the same patron he added a miniature, of the owner and his family before St Nicholas, to another Troyes-produced Book of Hours dating from the early years of the 15th century (Paris, S.M.A.F., Ms 79-5). A whole series of manuscripts associable with Troyes has been identified as the work of this illuminator and they include several destined for relatives of Le Peley, including his daughter Jeanne who was married to Edme le Boucherat, first mayor of Troyes, and Le Peley's other half-brother, Jean Molé, seigneur de Villy-le-Maréchal, the younger brother of Guillaume II. The