Item Details

With Very Lively Inhabitants, and among the Most
Attractive Small Hours Leaves We've Ever Had

ILLUMINATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT LEAVES FROM A LOVELY LITTLE BOOK OF HOURS, ALL WITH FINELY EXECUTED PANEL BORDERS FEATURING DELIGHTFUL ZOOMORPHIC INHABITATION.

(1440). 130 x 97 mm (5 1/8 x 3 7/8"). Single column, 14 lines of text in a lovely regular gothic book hand.

Rubrics in red, leaves with variable numbers of one- and two-line capitals in blue with white tracery, the initial on a burnished gold ground and infilled with ivy leaves in blue, orange, and white, ALL OF THE LEAVES WITH A PANEL BORDER ON EACH SIDE, ONE OR BOTH OF THE PANEL BORDERS INHABITED BY AN ANIMAL, HUMAN, FANCIFUL CREATURE, OR A FANTASTICAL HYBRID OF THESE, the remarkably charming residents placed amidst a tangle of acanthus leaves, flowers, buds, thistles, fruit, and other vegetation painted in brushed gold, blue, green, pink, and other colors. A very few minor signs of use, but generally IN EXTRAORDINARILY FINE CONDITION, the gold sparkling, the paint uneroded, and the vellum almost entirely clean and fresh.

These leaves come from a large fragment of a beautifully executed little Book of Hours done by very sophisticated artists whose illumination in general--and zoomorphic inhabitation in particular--is extremely (and sometimes immensely) charming. The borders here are the source of considerable charm, containing carnations, thistles, roses, daisies, violets, peas, melons, squash, strawberries, grapes, insects, young and mature deer, squirrels, and many birds (frequently small birds, but also a stork, a peacock, and a pheasant). In addition to the usual plants and birds, a number of borders contain special images of animals, including one with a throned pig chastising a frightened goose, a donkey weighed down by a big bag, and a wolf(?) attacking a rabbit. Many borders contain clothed and unclothed cherubs (often interacting with the vegetation, but one holding the flapping wings of a bird, another drinking from a green bottle, two in playful wrestling, another walking on stilts, another shooting an arrow at a bird, and so on). Peopled borders include those containing a jester, a musician with a harp, and peasants involved in various activities: carrying a heavy sack, beating a rearing donkey, carrying a jug (of urine?), and trapping an animal in a net. These are certainly among the most attractive and delightful small Book of Hours leaves we have ever offered for sale. (ST12021)