Ɵ Book of Hours, Use of Saintes, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment [northern France (Paris), c. 1470-80]

190 leaves (plus two endleaves at front and back), lacking single leaves after fols. 43, 69, 73, 77, 94, 128 and 190, and two leaves after fol. 91, else complete, collation: i12, ii-iii8, iv2 ,v8 , vi7 (wanting vi), vii-ix8, x6 (wanting i and vi), xi7 (wanting iii), xii8, xiii7 (wanting ii-iii and vii), xiv-xvi8, xvii-xviii (both wanting i), xix-xxiv8, xxv7 (wanting viii), ruled in red ink for single column of 16 lines of tiny and precise lettre bâtarde, Calendar in red with major names in blue, capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, line-fillers and one- and 2-line illuminated initials throughout in burnished gold on red and blue grounds with white tracery, panel borders on every page with 2-line initials in rinceaux foliage terminating in coloured acanthus leaves, flowers and fruit and gold bezants and ivy-leaves, three large initials with three-quarter illuminated borders in same, and five large arch-topped miniatures by Maître François, above large initials and 5 lines of text, these with full borders as before and inhabited by occasional birds and drolleries, nineteenth-century collector's label on front pastedown with No 514, some minor stains and thumbing to edges, discolouration and slight cockling to first leaf, else in good and presentable condition, 95mm by 65mm.; seventeenth-century French olive-brown morocco gilt, marbled endleaves, gilt edges, headband detached, slight scuffs, else good condition

A tiny pocket-sized Book of Hours prepared in Paris for a patron in the south west of France, and following the exceptionally rare Use of Saintes

Provenance:
1. Written and illuminated in Paris for a patron in Saintes in south-western France. The Calendar has SS. Albinus, bishop of Angers (1 March), the Litany includes SS. Eutropius, Ambrose, Bibianus, Trojanus and Palladius, all bishops of Saintes, St. Machutus (Malo), who lived in exile at Saintes, and St. Fronto, apostle of Périgueux, and the Use is that of Saintes, which appears not be recorded in any example by Leroquais. The presence of a number of Norman saints, including St Lawrence O'Toole, archbishop of Dublin, who died at Eu in Normandy in 1180 (Laurencii de augo, 14 November), may reveal family origins of the original owner in that region.
2. The Calendar leaves then used in the seventeenth or eighteenth century to record family events in French. These later erased and now only partly visible through UV light.
3. Perhaps then owned by John M. Augustin Felicite Steinmetz (1795-1883) of Shadwell, a lawyer of Middlesex and Bruges: with a small inkstamp of a 'VS' within a circle on front endleaf, similar to two variants (but within flattened circles) recorded by Lugt for Steinmetz.
4. Sold in Sotheby's, 6 July 2000, lot 83, to the current owner.

Text:
This book comprises: a Calendar (fol. 1r); the Gospel Sequences (fol. 13r); the Obsecro te (fol. 20r, for male use) and O intemerata; the Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (fol. 31r), Lauds (fol. 44r), Prime (fol. 57r), Terce (fol. 64r), Sext (fol. 70r), None (fol. 74r), Vespers (fol. 78r) and Compline (fol. 86r); the Hours of the Cross (fol. 92r) and of the Holy Ghost (fol. 95r); the Penitential Psalms (fol. 98r) with a Litany; the Office of the Dead; and Suffrages (fol.186r).

Illumination:
For the artist, Maître François, see previous lot.

The miniatures here are: (1) fol. 31r, the Annunciation, the Virgin kneeling before a chair or bed draped in red, a green canopy above, Gabriel on the right with a banderole ave maria gracia, gothic windows behind, architectural frame, and border including three song birds and a peacock facing the viewer in the middle of the bas-de-page; (2) fol. 57r, the Nativity, the Child lying on the hem of the Virgin's robe who kneels with Joseph outside the thatched stable, a hill to the right, the donkey behind; (3) fol. 64r, the Annunciation to the Shepherds, two shepherds and a shepherdess gazing up as two angels appear in the heavens holding a musical scroll, sheep in the foreground drinking from a spring, a dog asleep, landscape background; (4) fol. 86r, the Coronation of the Virgin, with the Virgin kneeling before the Throne of God as an angel leans over a tapestry and places a crown on her head; (5) fol. 98r, David in prayer, kneeling before an open book on an elaborate carved wooden lectern (apparently adjustable through a wooden screw forming its central pillar), his harp beside him as God appears in the sky above, with an animal-legged human-bodied drollery shooting an arrow at an orange dragon-headed snail in the border.

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