Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Hamilton lectionary.

Accession number
MS M.639
Object title
Hamilton lectionary.
Created
Constantinople, end of 11th century.
Binding
By Charles Lewis; purple velvet with 4 gilt hinges and gauffered edges; wide leather brown label on back lettered: Evangelistarium Graecum Codex Membranaceus Seculi Forsan XI Mirifice Illuminatus; in purple morocco box.
Credit line
Purchased by J.P. Morgan (1867-1943) in 1919.
Description
378 leaves (2 columns, 21-22 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 332 x 255 mm
Provenance
John Dent sale (London, R.H. Evans, Mar. 29 and Apr. 25, 1827) to Clarke for William Beckford (father-in-law of the Duke of Hamilton, who bequeathed his library to his son-in-law Alexander, 10th Duke of Hamilton); Duke of Hamilton Collection, inv. no. 495 (Hamilton Palace Library, Hamilton, Lanarkshire, Scotland); sold privately in 1883 with the Hamilton Collection to the Royal Museum of Berlin (The Hamilton Palace Libraries, Catalogue of the Hamilton Collection of Manuscripts, 1882, no. 245); resold with a portion of the Hamilton Collection by the Royal Museum of Berlin (London, Sotheby's, May 23, 1889, lot 3) to Trübner for Ellis and Elory; sold by Leighton June 21, 1898 to Henry Yates Thompson (written on Yates Thompson bookplate on front pastedown; catalogue, 1902, no. 99); his sale (London, Sotheby's, June 3, 1919, lot 22) to Quaritch for J.P. Morgan (1867-1943) in 1919.
Notes
Ms. Gospel lectionary; written and illuminated in Constantinople at the end of the 11th century.
Decoration: 5 half-page and 8 small miniatures; 3 marginal vignettes, 10 historiated initials, 8 portrait initials, 15 headpieces, and numerous ornamental initials.
Script
cursive minuscule script with ecphonetic musical notation
Language
Greek
Century
Classification