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Lancelot du Lac (MS M.805)

Accession number
MS M.805
Object title
Lancelot du Lac (MS M.805)
Created
Northeastern France, perhaps in Laon, Saint-Quentin, Soissons or Noyon, between 1313 and 1315
Binding
M.805 and M.806 were formerly bound together; rebound separately in September, 1849 for the Earl of Ashburnham in English faded pink morocco, gilt-tooled in the Du Seuil style.
Credit line
Purchased on the Lewis Cass Ledyard Fund, 1938.
Description
141 leaves (3 columns, 48-50 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 346 x 255 mm
Provenance
Jehan I de Brosse, seigneur de Ste. Sévère et de Boussac, maréschal de France (ca. 1375-1433), his ex libris inside front cover; Jean II de Brosse (ca. 1420-1482), count of Penthiè̀vre; Jean III de Brosse (d. 1502), count of Penthiè̀vre; probably the Lancelot du Lac listed in the sale catalogue of the library of the château d'Anet (Paris, Pierre Ganduouin, beginning Nov. 1724, p. 16), upon the death of Anne of Bavaria; Joseph Barrois (1784-1855, MS Barrois 36), sold in 1849 to Bertram, earl of Ashburnham (1797-1878); sold by his heir (London, Sotheby's, June 14, 1901, lot 537) to Archer for Charles Fairfax Murray; Henry Yates Thompson; his sale (London, Sotheby's, June 22, 1921, lot 69) to Quaritch; Cortlandt F. Bishop; his sale (New York, American Art Association, part II, Apr. 25, 1938, lot 1264), purchased in 1938 through A.S.W. Rosenbach, Philadelphia, through the Lewis Cass Ledyard Fund.
Notes
Ms. lancelot du lac, volume 1 of 3 with M.806 and M.807; written and illuminated in northeastern France, perhaps in Laon, Saint-Quentin, Soissons or Noyon, ca. 1313-1315.
Decoration: 18 oblong miniatures, 83 historiated initials.
Artist: Master of the Life of St. Benedicta of Origny, with Reims 217 Master (A. Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, I-2, pp. 438-49, no. III-93, p. 437, III-92).
There are numerous surviving instructions for the illuminator written in the margins in ink, including fols 48v. 49v, 50r, 121r, 123v, 127r, and 155r (Ms M. 806).
Revised: 2017
Script
minuscule
Language
Old French (Picard dialect)
Century
Classification