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25
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[MANUSCRIT] Book of Hours (Roman usage).
See original version (French)
25
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[MANUSCRIT] Book of Hours (Roman usage).
See original version (French)
Estimate €70,000 - €90,000
Voluntary lot
Description
[MANUSCRIT]
Book of Hours (Roman usage).
In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment.
Belgium, Bruges, third quarter of the 15th century, circa 1460-1470.
With 9 large miniatures attributable to the Mildmay Master.
136 ff, preceded and followed by a pink tabis endpaper laminated to a sheet of paper, then by a parchment sheet, complete but bound out of order, with the calendar bound at the end of the manuscript (collation: i8+1, ii8+1, iii8, iv8 +2, v8 +2, vi8+2, vii8, viii8, ix8, x8+1, xi8, xii8, xiii6, xiv7 (of 8, lacking i but almost certainly a blank leaf)), rounded (Italianate) Gothic script [Italianate Gotica Rotunda] in black ink over 17 lines, ruled in red ink (justification: 56x93mm), headings in pale red, small initials painted in blue or gold with red or dark blue filigree decoration, 2-line high initials in burnished gold on pink and blue backgrounds with white highlights, larger initials (4 to 5 lines high) introducing the large textual divisions in pink enhanced with white decoration set with coloured vine decoration, NINE FULL-PAGE MINIATURES inserted opposite the text, miniatures set in gold, blue and pink frames and full-page borders on reserved backgrounds with coloured acanthus leaves, flowers, fruit and foliage, a few birds, an owl, frames and borders in the same style around the text opposite the leaves with miniatures, one leaf with illuminated border without miniature (not missing): Messe de la Vierge, fol. 67).
Bound in mauve velvet (late 19th- or early 20th-century binding, typical of those made by Count Paul Durrieu for his collection), smooth spine, pink tabis spineband and front flyleaf, edges gilt and chased (upper spine split over 2cm; calendar with damp stains, a few tiny stains in the margins, small loss of colour in the miniature depicting the Visitation).
Size: 150x100mm
This pocket-sized gem of a Book of Hours was painted in Bruges between 1460 and 1470 (or at least after 1450, as the calendar includes Saint Bernardine, who was sanctified in 1450). The Italianate calligraphy suggests that this Book of Hours may have been copied for an Italian patron, perhaps a member of the flourishing community of Italian merchants and bankers established in Bruges in the 15th century.
Provenance:
1. Manuscript copied and illuminated in Flanders, almost certainly in Bruges, according to the style of the miniatures attributable to the Master of Mildmay, active in Bruges in the years 1460-1480. This artist is named after a manuscript preserved in Chicago, Newberry Library, MS. 35, which contains an important book of reason for the Mildmay family, initiated by Thomas Mildmay (c. 1515-1566), an important English family one of whose members, Henry Mildmay (c. 1593-1668), was a "Master of the King's Jewelhouse" and supported the regicide of Charles I of England. Bruges and its illuminators occupied a major share of the market for books of hours intended for export (to France, England, the Spanish Netherlands and even Italy). The Office of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead are in universal use in Rome, but the calendar includes saints honoured in Flanders (Bavon, Eloi, Donatien, Quentin) as well as Franciscan saints such as Francis, Clare, Anthony and Bernardine (recently canonised in 1450). This manuscript may have been commissioned by an owner with a particular devotion to the Franciscans. The masculine form of the Obsecro te prayer suggests that the first person to commission the present Hours was a man.
2. Collection of Count Paul Durrieu (1855-1925) with his signature on the cover. Paul Durrieu was a famous historian, scholar, curator and collector, as well as an important medievalist and art historian. A student at the École des Chartes and curator at the Musée du Louvre, Paul Durrieu was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1907. On Paul Durrieu, see A. de Laborde, Notice sur la vie et les travaux de M. le Comte Paul Durrieu, membre de l'Académie (Paris, 1928); A. de Laborde, Le comte Paul Durrieu, membre de l'Institut, 1855-1925. Sa vie, ses travaux (Paris, 1930). Durrieu pursued both a career as a scholar and art historian and an activity as a collector, his work sometimes focusing directly on the acquired manuscripts that constituted his "field of study", to use Laborde's expression. There is no published list of the manuscripts and folios that once belonged to Durrieu, and there has yet to be an in-depth study of Durrieu as a collector (see the work in progress by Nathalie Roman...
See original version (French)
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About the sale
ENLUMINATIONS, ANCIENT and MODERN BOOKS
Auction location
Auction time
06/17/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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