Beschreibung:

BIBLE, with the Prologues attributed to St Jerome and the Interpretation of Hebrew Names, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Paris, c.1235] 295 x 210mm. iii (i as pastedown) + 388 leaves + iv (iv as pastedown): 1-2 12 , 3-19 1 6 , 20 1 5 (of 16, lacking xvi), 21-22 1 6 , 23 12 , 24 1 6 , 25 1 7 (of 16, xvii a singleton), catchwords on lower right of some final versos, gatherings numbered lower centre of some opening rectos, some guides to headings and chapter numbers visible in margins, two columns of 51 lines written in black ink in a gothic bookhand between six verticals and 52 horizontals ruled in plummet, justification: 202 x 130mm, an additional pair of horizontals in upper and lower margins, rubrics in red, text capitals touched red ff.1-15, versal initials ff.1-15 and in the Psalter, letters of running headings and chapter numbers alternately of red and blue, two-line initials alternately of red extensively flourished with light blue and of dark blue with red, FORTY-EIGHT LARGE INITIALS with staves of red and dark blue elaborately flourished with light blue and red, SEVENTY-SIX ILLUMINATED INITIALS many incorporating birds, dragons, human-headed hydrids and serpents painted in blues, pinks, orange, yellow and white, seventeen on grounds of burnished gold, some extending into bar borders (slight tears to margins ff.301-2, 308, some tears repaired, slight smudging or rubbing on a few leaves). Modern brown morocco tooled in gilt in the Grolier style, gilt edges, by Francis Bedford; cloth slipcase. A HANDSOME BIBLE ILLUMINATED BY THE GAUTHIER LEBAUBE ATELIER PROVENANCE: 1. The arrangement and style of this Bible show that it was written and illuminated in Paris. 2. Frère Christin Pichard, doctor in theology and French provincial of the Augustinian Hermits, 1574: as inscribed on f.282 and, partially erased, on f.1. 3. Joseph Lilly, the bookseller (1804-1870): for whom Francis Bedford executed the binding. 4. Purchased Maggs Bros, London 19 August 1943 -- donated to SMS November 1943. CONTENT: Bible with the customary Prologues, lacking one leaf between ff.311-312 from the end of John X 40 to John XIII 12, ff.1-355; the Interpretation of Hebrew Names ff.356-388; a few annotations and corrections but margins generally very clean. ILLUMINATION: The initials show all the characteristics of the Gauthier Lebaube Atelier as listed by Branner: the birds delightfully perched on many of the initials, the affronted paired animals, the coiled winged beasts that form tails to the initials, the foliage arranged as two central facing leaves flanked by pairs of leaves turned downwards, all executed with great precision in an unusually wide range of colors, but without the green found in some manuscripts. Gauthier Lebaube's work is identified from his signature, which exceptionally appears on one of two full-page miniatures in the Pierpont Morgan Library, Glazier Ms 37; he may be the Gualterus illuminator documented in Paris in 1243. Certainly the Gauthier Lebaube Atelier was active in Paris c.1240, with this Bible seeming to relate to the earlier Lebaube style of the 1230s (R. Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris during the Reign of Saint Louis , 1977, pp.72-5, 213, pl.XII, figs.144-162). There are slight irregularities in the system of decoration where, in general, flourished initials introduce prologues and the lesser books and illuminated initials the major books. The prologue to Haggai, for instance, is given an illuminated initial. Daniel beginning at the foot of the left column has only four lines for the initial, which is flourished; to give the division sufficient weight an illuminated small bar border was executed in the central margin with a bird perching on a man-headed winged serpent with foliate tail. The large format of the volume suggests the earlier dating of this Bible in the production of the Lebaube Atelier and these slight inconsistencies support such a view. Of the fifteen manuscripts attributed to