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Book of hours (MS M.1160).

Accession number
MS M.1160
Object title
Book of hours (MS M.1160).
Created
Rouen, France, ca. 1460-1470.
Binding
19th-century black blind-tooled morocco, gilt-stamped "Preces piae" and signed Bauzonnet in the spine; two silver clasps; gilt-stamped vellum doublures; gilt edges.
Credit line
Melvin R. Seiden Collection, 2007.
Description
144 leaves (1 blank), bound : vellum, ill. ; 195 x 135 mm
Provenance
Made for a patron whose coat of arms were azure a double chevron argent three estoiles or (in the borders of fols. 13r and 37v); Belle da Costa Greene ("B.G. 1928" on the flyleaf); London, Christie's, 29 November 1999, lot 11; Melvin R. Seiden Collection; gifted to The Morgan Library & Museum in 2007.
Notes
Book of hours, use of Evreux, written and illuminated in Rouen, France, ca. 1460-1470, previously in the private collection of Belle da Costa Greene.
Decoration: 12 large illuminations; block foliate borders; numerous illuminated initials; line fillers.
List of illustrations: Four Evangelists, heraldry (escutcheon in the margin) (fol. 13r); Annunciation, marginal vignettes: Virgin weaving, Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden (fol. 27r); Visitation, heraldry (escutcheon in the margin) (fol. 37v); Nativity, marginal vignettes: choir of angels, shepherd with a bagpipe (fol. 51r); Annunciation to the Shepherds (fol. 57r); Adoration of the Magi (fol. 61r); Presentation in the Temple (fol. 64v); Flight into Egypt (fol. 68r); Coronation of the Virgin (fol. 74v); David in prayer, marginal vignettes: David and Goliath, Bathsheba in her Bath (fol. 81r); Pentecost (fol. 101v); Death Pursuing a Pope, an Emperor, and a King, marginal vignettes: funeral service, burial (fol. 105r).
Artist: Workshop of the Master of the Rouen Echevinage.
Other manuscripts from the Master of the Rouen Echevinage and his workshop in the collection are MSS M.32, M.131, M.137, M.167, M.172, M.312, M.457, M.1093, M.1158.
Frame-ruled, 6.1 x 9.9 mm (calendar folios) and 6.1 x 9.3mm (text folios), 16 (calendar) and 15 (text) long lines, ruled in pale red ink, with signs of pricking in some folios.
The collation of the manuscript is not regular, and there is at least one folio missing between fols. 98 and 99, as the Hours of the Cross is missing its beginning, including its miniature of the Crucifixion (fol. 99r begins mid-sentence: "viui pone passionem cruce[m] et mortem").
Fol. 50r is left blank but has an addition by a later hand that reads "Confiteor."
Contents
Calendar (in French) (fols. 1r-12v); Gospel Lessons (13r-18v); Obsecro te (18v-22r); O intemerata (22r-26r) (26v ruled but blank); Office of the Virgin, use of Evreux (27r-79v; fols. 48v, 50r, 50v ruled but blank, see below) (80r-80v ruled but blank); Penitential Psalms and Litany (81r-98r) (98v ruled but blank); Hours of the Cross, beginning lacking (99r-101r); Hours of the Holy Spirit (101v-104r) (104v ruled but blank); Office of the Dead, use of Evreux (105r-137v); French prayer to the Virgin (138r-140r); Latin prayers to Saint Catherine (140v-143v).
Script
Gothic book hand
Language
Latin and Middle French
Century
Classification