Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Paris, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Paris, c.1410] 156 x 114mm. 144 leaves (modern pencilled foliation includes 3bis): 1 2(early addition), 2-3 8, 4 6(contemporary addition), 5-8 8, 9 7(of 8, lacking i), 10 9(?of 8 + ix), 11-12 8, 13 6, 14-17 8, 18 2, 19-20 8(contemporary additions), 17 lines written in brown ink in a gothic bookhand between two verticals and 18 horizontals ruled in pink, justification: 90 x 57 mm, rubrics in red, calendar written in red, pink, blue and gold, text capitals touched yellow, one-line initials and line-endings in burnished gold on grounds of pink and blue patterned with white, two- and three-line initials with staves of pink or blue on burnished gold grounds with foliate infills, A FULL BORDER OF ENTWINED STEMS OF SEMI-NATURALISTIC LEAVES IN GREEN, GOLD AND BLUE ON EVERY PAGE (except one blank page and four added leaves), ELEVEN MINIATURES WITHIN SIMILAR BORDERS AND THREE-SIDED BARS of foliage, flowers or patterned bands, all employing gold, one border of gold vine leaves and small fowers on hairline tendrils on added leaf (lacking one leaf with miniature, wear to many pages, including some miniatures and the lower edges of many borders, face of St John damaged and repainted f.86, detailling of faces renewed f.90, a few borders trimmed into lower corner). Nineteenth-century brown morocco stamped in blind with gryphons and lions around a panel of rosettes, gilt edges (very lightly scuffed). Half-morocco case. ONE OF THE BEDFORD MASTER'S EARLIEST BOOKS OF HOURS, WITH EXCEPTIONAL BORDERS, FROM THE DYSON PERRINS COLLECTION PROVENANCE: 1. Style and liturgical use indicate that the manuscript was made and extended in Paris. The calendar includes Parisian saints like Marcel (26 July and 3 Nov.), Genevieve (3 Jan. and 26 Nov.), who is also in the litany, and Fiacre (30 Aug.), for whom there is a memorial in the apparently contemporary additions. The prayers to the Virgin, added at the same time, are in the masculine. There are a few later annotations. 2. C.W. Dyson Perrins (1864-1958): armorial bookplate inside upper cover, with later number 38, as Sir G. Warner, Descriptive Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts in the Library of C.W. Dyson Perrins , 1920; earlier number 136 inside lower cover. Sold Sotheby's, 1 December 1959, The Dyson Perrins Collection, Part 2, lot 69. CONTENT: Prayer to Christ, O bone Jhesu (early addition) ff.1-2; Calendar ff.3-13v; Gospel Extracts ff.14-17v; Obsecro te (contemporary addition) ff.17v-20; O intemerata (contemporary addition) ff.20v-23; Office of the Virgin, use of Paris, ff.24-71v: matins f.24, lauds f.41, prime f.48v, terce (lacking end) f.53, sext (lacking opening) f.56, none f.58v, vespers f.61v, compline f.67v; Penitential Psalms and litany ff.72-85v; Hours of the Cross ff.86-89v; Hours of the Holy Spirit ff.90-93v; Office of the Dead, use of Paris, ff.94-127v; Quinze joyes and Sept requêtes (contemporary addition) ff.128-134v; Memorials (contemporary addition) ff.135-143v: Trinity, Holy Spirit, Cross, Virgin, Sts Michael, John the Baptist, Peter and Paul, Andrew, Philip and James, John the Evangelist, James, Stephen, Lawrence, George, Denis, Christopher, Martin, Nicholas, Fiacre, Mary Magdalen, Katherine, Margaret. ILLUMINATION: This exceptional manuscript is among the earliest associated with the Bedford Master, the illuminator named from his work in the 1420s and 1430s for John, duke of Bedford, regent in Paris for Henry VI of England. The Master's beginnings are much debated but it now seems likely that the style of one man underlies both the great books from the mid-1410s onwards and the earlier manuscripts, which Millard Meiss had attributed to a 'Trend towards Bedford'. The elegant figures, in type and careful facial modelling, resemble those by the Master in the Châteauroux Breviary, completed for the Dauphin, Louis of Guyenne, before his death in 1415. Compositionally, the miniatures relate more to th