Accession number
MS M.730
Object title
Psalter-Hours of Ghuiluys de Boisleux.
Created
Arras, France, ca. 1243 - 1246.
Binding
English 19th-century red morocco gilt by Charles Lewis.
Credit line
Purchased from the Holford estate, 1927
Description
251 leaves (1 column, 20 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 197 x 147 mm
Provenance
Executed for Ghuiluys de Boisleux and her husband Jean de Neuville-Vitasse (married in 1246, arms vert a fess gules impaled with "Bourgogne ancien" and a shield or a fretty and canton gules); descended through the Neuvilles to the Courtenays, emperors of Constantinople; Empress Catherine de Courtenay (wife 1300-1308 of Charles de Valois, portraits of her and her family on fol. 17v and 214 by a Lombard artist); Teodoro Paleologo (name on fol. 250v); Benjamin Heywood Bright sale (London, Sotheby's, June 18, 1844, lot 202, facsimile) to Rodd; Robert Stayner Holford; Sir George L. Holford; purchased from the Holford estate in 1927.
Notes
Ms. psalter and book of hours; written and illuminated in Arras, France, in the mid 13th century.
Decoration: 31 full-page miniatures, all but two with compartments; 11 large historiated initials; 24 calendar illustrations; 3 calendrical charts; marginal animals and grotesques (1 miniature and 1 historiated initial on fol. 17v and 214 repainted in the 14th century by a Lombard artist).
The manuscript was created between 1243, the date of the lunar computational table on fol. 7r, and 1246 when Ghuiluys de Boisleux and Jean de Neuville-Vitasse married. It was probably commissioned by or for Ghuiluys whose images appeared originally beneath the later portraits of Catherine de Courtenay on fols. 17v (the heraldric escutcheons of Ghuiluys and her husband remain in the margin above) and 214r where the earlier image of a female devotee, with the arms of Ghuiluys, appears under ultraviotlet light. In addition the escutcheons bearing the heraldry of Ghuiluys far outnumber those of her husband (see, Lesson, "The Psalter-Hours of Ghuiluys de Boisleux," Arte Medievale, 2006, p. 115).
Revised: 2017
Decoration: 31 full-page miniatures, all but two with compartments; 11 large historiated initials; 24 calendar illustrations; 3 calendrical charts; marginal animals and grotesques (1 miniature and 1 historiated initial on fol. 17v and 214 repainted in the 14th century by a Lombard artist).
The manuscript was created between 1243, the date of the lunar computational table on fol. 7r, and 1246 when Ghuiluys de Boisleux and Jean de Neuville-Vitasse married. It was probably commissioned by or for Ghuiluys whose images appeared originally beneath the later portraits of Catherine de Courtenay on fols. 17v (the heraldric escutcheons of Ghuiluys and her husband remain in the margin above) and 214r where the earlier image of a female devotee, with the arms of Ghuiluys, appears under ultraviotlet light. In addition the escutcheons bearing the heraldry of Ghuiluys far outnumber those of her husband (see, Lesson, "The Psalter-Hours of Ghuiluys de Boisleux," Arte Medievale, 2006, p. 115).
Revised: 2017
Script
textura
Language
Latin and French
Resources
Catalog link
Classification
Department