An extremely attractive example of late fifteenth-century Flemish ‘strewn’ border illumination; from the von Lanna-Busch Book of Hours, illuminated in the workshop of the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximilian. The present leaf contains the opening of the Suffrage to St Nicholas.
A string of roses and violets wends its way around the border, curving around naturalistic birds, butterflies and caterpillars, all on a striking green ground, and shadowed to add a sense of depth. This style of border illumination is characteristic of late-fifteenth century illumination from the South Netherlands: “The new style of borders shared with the fresh approach to the miniatures the concern with verisimilitude, especially qualities of light, texture, shadow and colour. The borders also have a spatial component that is rare in Flemish border illumination up to this time. The objects cast their own shadows against backgrounds that are now solid coloured….By the mid 1480s, if not earlier, the new types of spatial borders - especially those with “strewn” flora and acanthus, luscious textures, and occasional illusionism - were a feature of nearly all Flemish illuminated manuscripts, not only books of hours and prayer books but liturgical and vernacular texts, too.” (McKendrick & Kren, p.122-4).
The engaging borders are attributable to the workshop of the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximilian, named after the manuscript made for the Emperor Maximilian (Vienna ÖNB cod. 1907). The Master was one of the leading figures in this school of illumination, the so-called Ghent-Bruges School.
Provenance:
(1) From a Flemish manuscript probably written in Bruges, to judge by the presence of Sts Basil and Donatian (as well as Bavo of Ghent) in gold in the calendar of the parent manuscript. The volume was described in 1911 and 1921 as having 224 or 225 leaves (including 23 leaves added at the end with 16th-century prayers in Flemish), of which 48 pages had full borders and 12 more had partial borders; the calendar borders incorporating twelve pairs of miniatures depicting Occupations of the Month and the Signs of the Zodiac. From the two plates in the 1921 catalogue it is evident that the manuscript was written and partially illuminated in the mid-15th century, while borders and large initials were added about sixty years later, perhaps in the Ghent workshop of the Master of the Older Prayerbook of Maximilian. It is likely that full-page miniatures on single leaves were also inserted at the same time, but if so, were removed by 1911. Three more leaves are at the Johnson Museum of Art, Cornell University (Ithaca, NY), including the first leaf of the Hours of the Dead for Mondays, and the Hours of the Spirit for Tuesdays is reproduced as Sotheby’s, 6 December 1988, lot 7.
(2) Adalbert Freiherr von Lanna (1836-1909) of Prague: his sale by Gilhofer & Ranschberg, Vienna, 3–4 April 1911, lot 4; presumably bought by:
(3) Rudolf Busch (1876–1956) of Mainz, art collector, art historian, and museum director: his sale by Baer, Frankfurt, 4 May 1921, lot 272.
(4) Sold as ‘The Property of a Gentleman’ (an art connoisseur, real estate broker, philanthropist, and one of the ‘Monuments Men’ at the end of WWII), at Christie’s, New York, 21 October 1977, lot 103 (col. ill.); bought for $16,000 for H.P. Kraus and broken up.
(5) Acquired by previous owners at Sotheby’s, 6 July 2010, lot 22.
