Beschreibung:

BOOK OF HOURS, use of Utrecht, in Dutch with some Latin incipits , ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Zwolle, c.1460] 151 x 102mm. ii paper + 167 leaves + ii paper:1 8, 2 7(vii inserted miniature), 3-6 8, 7 9(iv an inserted miniature), 8-9 8, 10 9(iv an inserted miniature), 11-12 8, 13 9(i an inserted miniature), 14 8, 15 9(i an inserted miniature), 16 7(of 8 + ix an inserted miniature, lacking i, viii cancelled blank), 17 8(i an inserted miniature), 18-20 8, 21 4, likely lacking a gathering between 15 and 16, 20 lines written in black ink in a gothic bookhand, between two verticals and two horizontals ruled in brown, justification: 87 x 57mm, rubrics in red, text initials touched red, one- and two-line initials alternately in red and blue, three-line initials in blue flourished with red and touched with green, SIX LARGE INITIALS with blue staves reserving patterns of unpainted parchment, extensively flourished with red and touched with green, SIX FULL-PAGE MINIATURES on burnished gold grounds in square frames of pink and blue patterned with white on burnished gold surrounded by full borders of painted acanthus sprays with hairline tendrils linking burnished gold disks and leaves and painted flowers, three incorporating figures, birds, animals and grotesques (margins trimmed into upper flourishings and slightly worn, offsetting from miniature borders, slight crackling in gold backgrounds). 17-century brown leather over pasteboard, spine gilt tooled in five compartments, ribbon bookmark, edges mottled red (split by upper sewing band, corners and edges worn). PROVENANCE: 1. The Office of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead are for the use of Utrecht, the diocese covering the northern Netherlands. The Calendar indicates the east of the diocese since it includes in red Utrecht feasts for Sts Poncian (Jan 14), Servatius (May 13), Boniface (June 5), Odulf (June 12), Lebuin of Deventer (translation June 25 and November 12), Lambert (September 18), Willibrord (November 7), and the patrons of Cologne, Gereon and Victor (October 10). The mistake in writing Sarijs for Marijs in the calendar (Jan 19) places this hours in a group of manuscripts written from a faulty exemplar in Zwolle, perhaps by the community of the Brethren of the Common Life. They ran a large and successful scriptorium, supplying books to patrons in Utrecht and elsewhere. 2. Balthazar Huydecoper (1695-1778): B. Huydecoper written in an 18th-century hand on f.1v. Huydecoper was an Amsterdam patrician and classical scholar who wrote verses in Latin and translations from Latin but was passionately interested in the Dutch language. As well as his own compositions in Dutch, he produced the first scholarly edition of a Middle-Dutch text, Rijmchronijk van Melis Stoke , 1772, and is recognised as the founder of Dutch philology. His historical and linguistic interests led him to amass a considerable library, mostly auctioned in Amsterdam in 1779. Many of his manuscripts went to the Maatschappij der Nederlandse Letterkunde, whose foundation in Leiden in 1766 he had helped to inspire (see C.J.J. van Schaik, Balthazar Huydecoper , Assen, 1962). He also owned three manuscripts now in the Utrecht University Library, Mss 1037, 1014 and 1335 an Utrecht Hours illuminated by the Master of Zweder van Culemborg, a patristic collection from Rhenen and a Boethius in Dutch illuminated by a follower of Loyset Liédet (see K. van der Horst, Illuminated and Decorated Manuscripts in the University Library, Utrecht , Cambridge, 1989.) 3. J s. F s. Pyke: 19th-century printed bookplate inside front cover, where different hands have written in ink 5057 at the top and No A below; on final paper leaf Ms 11, partially erased. 4. Note of contents in French pencilled on second paper leaf; 166 f pencilled inside lower cover. CONTENT: Calendar ff.2-13; Office of the Virgin, use of Utrecht, ff.16-51v: matins f.16, lauds f.24, prime f.31v, terce f.34v, sext f.37, none f.40, vespers f.42v, compline f.47v