An extremely rare French Hours, one of the earliest collaborations between Guillaume Rouillé and Macé Bonhomme, with the newly designed woodcuts of Pierre Eskrich in the mannerist style; OCLC records only the two copies located in Paris at the BNF and the Bib. Mazarine. Rouille had also published an edition in 1548 which is equally rare (OCLC records a copy at the Morgan but both the BNF and BM Lyons copies are incomplete).
“Without departing from the established sequence of subjects, Eskrich has made his composition independent of the various Paris sets. There is a pervading atmosphere of tension in the positions and facial expressions of individual figures, developed in a style differing markedly from the treatment of the Paris artists. The borders for the illustrations are designed as units, but each one is printed from four blocks… They are chiefly composed of grotesques, with a few pure arabesque, and served also for the editions of Alciati”. (Mortimer).
The Hours begins with an almanach for the years 1548 to 1567, the second and third parts are Les vespres de la sepmaine, avec complie[s] (64pp). and La doctrine des Chrestiens, extraicte du vieil & nouveau testament (32pp).
Provenance: ‘Berbisey’, likely the important Dijon family (early ink inscription to title) who provided several officers of the Dukes of Burgundy and advisors to the Parliament of Dijon. Several books from their library are known, including Hours painted by the Master of the Burgundian Prelates, see: M.-F. Damongeot-Bourdat, “Un livre d’heures inédit de la famille Berbisey”, in Art de l’enluminure, n° 13 (Juin/Juillet/Août 2005), pp. 8-39.
‘M. Brocard’; ‘Cat. Ins[criptus] 1722’ (ink inscriptions to title). The association of the two names – Berbisey and Brocard – suggests that the book probably belonged to the couple Antoine Brocard (Master of Accounts in Dijon) and Marguerite Berbisey (16th century), or to their descendants.
Title with a few small holes to inner and lower margin, some damp-staining, mostly to lower corners at end of Hours and first half of Vespers, top- and, fore-edge occasionally cropped affecting the odd headline and border, occasional spotting.
Baudrier X, pp. 216-217. Lacombe, 509. Brunet V, 1676. Mortimer, 311.
N. Rondot, Pierre Eskrich, peintre et tailleur d’histoires, 45-7.
