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ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT BOOK OF HOURS, [France, late fifteenth century] image 1
ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT BOOK OF HOURS, [France, late fifteenth century] image 2
Lot 24

ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT
BOOK OF HOURS, [France, late fifteenth century]

25 March 2015, 11:00 GMT
London, Knightsbridge

Sold for £20,000 inc. premium

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ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT

BOOK OF HOURS, manuscript on vellum, 149 leaves, spurious title "heures manuscrites de Catherine de Mèdicis 1585" with borders pasted on, incomplete text and calendar, all with outer border of leafy sprays, flowers and fruits in colours and liquid gold, numerous 2- and 1-line illuminated initials in red, blue, liquid gold and white, line fillers in the same, rubrics, 14 lines per page (justification c.100 x 65mm.), text in brown ink in a large textura hand, some clean cuts and neat repairs in gutter or at foot, late sixteenth century French dark brown morocco gilt, covers with central oval arabesques lettered 'N. de. I. 1585' and large decorative cornerpieces, on a ground semé with miniature fleurs-de-lys, flat spine gilt in 6 compartments, lacking clasps, 8vo (205 x 140mm.), [France, late fifteenth century]

Footnotes

A clean and tall Book of Hours, in a dated French morocco binding.

Provenance: marginal inscription in a sixteenth century French hand on one leaf of calendar regarding the foundation of a Benedictine monastery on 22 April 1519 on the Rue du Cigne; "N. de I., 1585", gilt initials on covers; Frederick Charles Husenbeth (1796-1872), English Catholic priest and writer, ownership inscription dated 1836; his sale at Norwich, 4 February 1873, where the books "fetched surprising sums", and "a MS. which formerly belonged to Catherine de Medici, fell to Lord Stafford" (The Tablet, 15 February 1873); Henry Stafford-Jerningham, 9th Baron Stafford (1802-1884), printed catalogue slip pasted in and annotated below in pencil "Lord Stafford's Collection"; Marion C. Walker, bookplate.

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