Beschreibung:

Leaf from the LLANGATTOCK BREVIARY, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Ferrara, c.1450] 267 x 197mm. Four borders consisting of coloured flowers and burnished gold disks on scrolling vine stems or of burnished gold bars flowering at top and bottom into sprays of leaves, buds and gold disks connected with elaborate pen-work stems; one 4-line illuminated initial in mauve, blue and burnished gold, four 2-line initials in burnished gold on mauve or blue grounds with white tracery; one-line initials in burnished gold with blue pen-flourishing or blue with red pen-flourishing. Double columns of 30 lines, ruled in lead, justification: 161 x 125mm, written in a rounded gothic liturgical script in black ink, rubrics in red, capitals washed in yellow (some flaking of ink from flesh side). This leaf comes from a manuscript that was sold in our rooms (8 December 1958, lot 190) as part of the estate of the 2nd Baron Llangattock. Many miniatures had already been removed and after the sale the remaining leaves were separated and dispersed. All aspects of this luxury manuscript - size, format and illumination - correspond with those of the Missal of Borso d'Este, Marquis and then Duke of Ferrara (Modena, Biblioteca Estense, Ms W.5.2, Lat.239) and the Breviary was certainly made either for him or his predecessor Leonello and intended, like the Missal, for use in the ruler's chapel. It is now usually identified with the Breviary recorded in accounts in the d'Este archives as having been illuminated for Leonello by Giorgio d'Alemagna, Bartolomeo di Beninc, Guglielmo Giraldi and Matteo de' Pasti f. Toniolo ed., La miniatura a Ferrara dal Tempo di Cosm Tura all'eredit di Ercole de' Roberti (1998), pp.19, 20, 76-77.