Sales catalogues: Quaritch

Date:
October 1896
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/17/50
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogues: Quaritch. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    MANUSCRIPTS WITH ILLUMINATION. Small 8vo. A SPLENDIDLY ILLUMINATED MS. ON VELLUM, wth 21 rFurt-pacr MINIATURES BY AN ARTIST OF THE SCHOOL OF Tours ; bound in old red leather ; enclosed in an olive morocco case About 1485 A volume of wholly exceptional character in the style and finish of its Miniatures with their delicate landscape-backgrounds. These illustrations are declared by M. Durrien, the Conservateur-adjoint au Musée du Louvre, to bear a close resemblance to the pictures in the famous Heures de Louis de Laval in the Bibliotheque Nationale, and he alleges that the same artists must have worked both books. These Miniatures are as follows:—l. St. John at Patmos, hills, waters, and towers in the background; 2. St. Luke painting, a design of remarkable power and skill; 3. St. John transcribing, an angel upholding the original; 4. St. Mark comparing text and copy; 5. The Nativity; 6. The Warning to the Shepherds; 7. Adoration of the three Kings, a dark body of horsemen in the middle distance ; 8. Presentation in the Temple, a grand cathedral-interior with numerous figures; 9. Christ among the Doctors; 10. Entry into Jerusalem, a picture with many figures and a fine landscape, an escutcheon above the city-gate; 11. The Kiss of Judas, a dark torch- lighted picture, with a great number of figures ; 12. Christ brought before the High Priest, an interior with about twenty figures, outside can be seen houses and the heads of a large crowd gazing in; 13. Christ scourged, a cathedral interior, with nine figures, powerfully painted ; 14. Christ bearing the Cross, a landscape with numerous figures, a great crowd on the hill-top in the distance; 15. The Crucifixion, with a large number of spectators, a peculiar rendering of the darkness above the horizon ; 16. The Descent from the Cross; 17. The Entombment, with several figures, a view of Calvary and the Crosses in the distance ; 18. Descent of the Holy Ghost, a dark cathedral interior with twenty five figures, lighted up by the radiance from the Dove; 19. David cutting off Goliath’s head, witha varied landscape of hills, and towers, and green fields, two hostile armies in the middle distance; 20. The Raising of Lazarus, with a landscape background, a great number of figures in the foreground and a crowd in the middle distance; 21. Christ arising from the tomb and supported by angels, addressing a kneeling figure which represents the first owner of the volume, behind whom a Bishop (the name-saint probably) is standing. Altogether, this is a MS. of a special and beautiful kind, very seldom to be found. It appears to have been carried into Italy at the time of Louis XII’s invasion, and to have remained there till the other day. Small 4to. rive MS. on vettum, richly dluminated with numerous borders and initials, and containing six large Mintatures with landscape backgrounds ; in an old French red morocco binding (executed in Paris about 1630-40) About 1485 This volume is in very fine condition; having all the original brightness of the colouring and illumination. The borders are floral and are partially painted on gold grounds. On the reverse of leaf 29 we find a rubric: Incipiunt Hore beatissime Virginis Marie secundum usum Lingonensis dyocesis. 1 * 200 0 0 36 0 0