Beschreibung:

JEAN COLOMBE and his workshop, BOOK OF HOURS, use of Bourges. ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM. [Bourges, ca. 1480] 167 x 102mm. 87 leaves,including one original blank [f.82] (lacking an undetermined number of text leaves), plus 20 later blank leaves; later foliation: [6], 101 ff. Collation, including intercalated blanks: 1 6 2 4 3-4 6 5 8 6 4 7 8 8 3 9 4 10 6 11 2 12-17 4 18-20 4 21 4 (of 6, v and vi cancelled) 22 8 ; in gatherings 8-17 (ff.37-75), which contain all the added blanks and from which substantial amounts of text are lacking, the original conjugacy and order of the leaves has been substantialy altered. 31 lines, single column, ruled in brown ink, justification: 140 x 73mm, written in brown ink in a bâtarde hand, rubrics in blue, one-, two-, three- or four-line initials in liquid gold on grounds of red, blue or brown, with similar line-fillers, 31 THREE-QUARTER-PAGE MINIATURES, 35 HALF-PAGE MINIATURES (some flaking of pigment; several miniatures very slightly cropped at the top; some staining of text pages or offset of text onto blank leaves in ff. 38-75). 17th-century French gold-tooled binding, gilt edges; a remboîtage (corners rubbed, spine wormed head and tail, small split upper joint, lacking ties). . PROVENANCE: The calendar, in French, names a saint for every day of the year; in blue are St. Genevieve (Jan. 3), St. Ives (May 19), St. Eloi (June 25), St. Martin (July 4), St. Louis (August 25), St. Leu and St. Gilles (Sept. 1), St. Denis (Oct. 9), St. Marcel (Nov. 3), St. Martin (Nov. 11), and St. Eloi (Dec. 1). The use of the Office of the Dead is Bourges; the text of the Office of the Virgin is missing from the manuscript. 16th-century inscription on flyleaf, names obliterated; early inscriptions on f.4v (signed Renee de Bouchey) and f. 10v. Purchased in Lyons according to a 20th-century pencilled inscription on the flyleaf. TEXT: Calendar; Gospel sequences (ff.1-4v); Passion according to St. John (ff.5-10v); Penitential Psalms (ff.11-15); Litany (ff.15v-17v); Office of the Dead (ff.18-37v); miniatures with text fragments on backs, interleaved with later blanks (ff.38-75); Suffrages and prayers to the Virgin (ff.76-101v). Originally the manuscript also included the Hours of the Virgin, the Hours of the Cross, the Hours of the Holy Spirit, the Office of St. Barbara and the Office of St. Katherine. ILLUMINATION: The iconographic scheme shows that this was once a luxuriously illuminated book of hours, with full cycles of illustration for each of the offices it included. It was subsequently reduced to a book of pictures by the removal of the texts of all the offices except the Office of the Dead. From the offices of the Virgin, the Holy Cross, the Holy Spirit, St. Barbara, and St. Katherine, most of the miniatures remain; many of these have been remounted on stubs, often reversed recto for verso, and have been bound out of order. The blank vellum leaves that occur between the miniatures in the central section of the manuscript (ff. 38-75) were formerly glued down to the versos of these miniatures in order to conceal the text there; these fragments of text are the only passages surviving from the missing offices. The style and iconography of the miniatures place this Book of Hours in the workshop of Jean Colombe The miniatures of the Virgin and Christ enthroned with the company of saints (f.15v) and the Man of Sorrows (f.76) closely resemble those attributed to Colombe in the Très Riches Heures of Jean, duc de Berry, and in Pierpont Morgan Library, M.677. St. Luke painting the portrait of the Virgin (f.2) shares the layout and composition of the corresponding subject in M.677, and many other details of style, e.g., the use of grisaille interiors and the foreshortening of upturned faces, correspond to features of Colombe's work. The miniatures of the mocking of Christ (f.9v), the funeral procession (f.21v), the crucifixion (f.45v), the deposition (f.48v), and the entombment (f.50v), are very close to those in