Large leaf from a Lectionary, with a large illuminated initial, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (probably Paris), c. 1300]

Single large leaf, with large initial 'M' (opening Maria Magdalena a magdalo castro ..., the reading from the Golden Legend for the Feast of St. Mary Magdalene) in fawn and blue, heightened with white circles, enclosing two dragon- and bird-bodied drolleries, with a beaked bird's and a human girl's heads, on burnished gold grounds, the whole initial on blue and fawn grounds within a pale green and red frame, a large red and blue goose-like bird with a green head stretching to peck at a golden bezant atop the initial, and coloured bars descending the entire length of the border terminating in an angular knot of foliage and two sprays of foliage, initials in red or blue with densely curling penwork in contrasting colour, red rubrics, one blue paragraph mark, double columns of 24 lines of an angular gothic bookhand with notable lateral compression, some small scuffs, spots and stains, slight chipping to gold in places, leaf slightly cockled overall, else good condition, 485 by 357mm.; mounted on card in a wooden frame (without glass)

From the collection of Jean-Baptiste Colbert de Beaulieu (1905-95), medical doctor, coin collector and author, and honorary research-director of the Centre national de la recherché scientifique: his circular inkstamp on leaf, and note on back of frame evidently in his hand recording details of leaf and that he bought it in Paris in 1937.