Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Paris, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Besançon, circa 1440] 203 x 147mm, 103 (of 104) leaves + 2 original medieval fly-leaves at the beginning, early vellum endleaves and paste-downs. Collation: 1-2 8 3 4 4-11 8 12 6 13 8 14 6 (lacking leaf 8/1). 18 lines, ruled in red, justification: 105x77mm, written in brown ink in a gothic textura, rubrics in red, versal initials in burnished gold on blue and red ground with white tracery, also similar two-line initials with golden ivy leaf extensions, line-fillers of burnished gold, red and blue, 8 LARGE 4-LINE INITIALS red or blue on gold ground in-filled with foliate branchwork decoration, with full borders of ivy leaves on hairline stems, acorn leaves, fruit and flowers, containing grotesques and birds, surrounding three-quarter baguette frame; 5 LARGE MINIATURES in arched compartements, with similar full borders and an armorial shield in each corner, rectos of the calendar with similar three-quarter borders. The fly-leaves have small holes suggesting that pilgrim badges were at one time sewn to them. (Lacking the first leaf of the Hours of the Cross, probably with a minature of the Crucifixion. Some of the armorial shields have been overpainted and this has flaked; otherwise in excellent condition). Modern red morocco gilt over wooden boards. PROVENANCE: (1) Apparently made for a woman of the Vellefaux family of Franche-Comté in Burgundy. She appears kneeling before the Virgin and Child in the last miniature. Her name may have been Catherine, as there is a long prayer to the saint on folio 83. The coats of arms in the border of each miniature are presumably those of her father on the right representing Vellefaux (gules, a fesse argent three leopard faces in chief); and of her husband at the left (gules, three chevrons or), probably the Fitigny family of Franche-Comté. (2) The manuscript seems to have remained in the region for about 200 years. From 1541 to his death in 1562, it belonged to Etienne Cauquohin of Dijon, and after that to the Rougier family. On the two blank leaves at the beginning and throughout the calendar and following 8 leaves are recorded the births and deaths and events in the life of the Rougier family from 1566, physicians and medical practitioners in Dijon. Curiously they also describe their own illnesses and ailments. In 1597 Rougier's daughter Anne married Jean Mailley and the book passed to their son Paul, advocat au parlement de Dijon. The last entry is in 1648, when his mother died aged 90. All the burials seem to have been at the church of St.Jean in Dijon. (3) Sold at Sotheby's 6 July 1964, lot 244, the property of Mrs Gaby Solomon of Buenos Aires TEXT: (ff 1-12) Calendar; (f.13) Gospel Sequences; (ff 17-20) Obsecro te . This is in another, though contemporary, hand from the rest of the manuscript; (f.21) Hours of the Virgin, Matins; (f.28) Lauds; (f.35) Prime; (f.38) Terce; (f.40v) Sext; (f.42v) None; (f.44v) Vespers; (f.48) Compline; (f.51) Verses of St.Bernard and other prayers; (f.53) Hours of the Cross (lacking first leaf); (f.54v) Hours of the Holy Ghost; (f.56v) Penitential Psalms; (f.68) Office of the Dead; (f.78) Douce Dame de Misericorde (Leroquais I,131); (f.81v) Doulce Dieux (Leroquais II, 309); followed by prayers including a long suffrage to St.Catherine; (f.85v) Oraison devote a nostre dame ; (f.89v) Suffrages to saints Anthony, Nicholas and Sebastian; (f.92-95) Salve virgo , in verse; (f.96-103) Loueuse virge pucelle , in verse. This is in a 16th-century hand. ILLUMINATION: The strong and simple forms of these miniatures, the "vibrant luminosity", are typical of a miniaturist working in Besançon in about 1430. Plummer in The Last Flowering no.36 (Pierpont Morgan M.293) describes him as a Follower of the Egerton Master, assuming that he had been trained in the Egerton Master's workshop in Paris. He lists 10 other manuscripts, including the present, made in Besançon and Dijon by the same arti