Single leaf on vellum from a Book of Hours

[FRENCH ILLUMINATOR]

Single leaf on vellum from a Book of Hours

WITH TWO BIRDS IN MINIATURE

Single leaf on vellum (183 x 114mm), verso blank, recto with leafy, two-sided enclosed border of red, blue and gold acanthus leaves on gold and brown grounds, alternating striped at foreedge, with strawberries, thistles and blue forget-me-nots, rectangular miniature at foot of page with two bird-like creatures shades and highlights picked out in gold, trees either side with red and yellow flowers, against lush grassy background with larger shrubs, all enclosed within two columns. Nineteen lines of gothic text (final line left blank) with yellow highlights, line filler in the shape of a branch, small areas of loss and cracking to border colour, thumbed at fore-edge.

France (Paris or Tours?), c.1500, 1500.

£1,000.00

An attractive leaf on vellum from a Book of Hours, with an unusual bas-de-page miniature at the foot of the page depicting two angry-looking birds. Like many forms of such marginal illumination they bear no relation to the text above, and their role here is unclear. Perhaps they represent a world turned upside down, in which the natural order of things is inverted; or one in which the grotesque is kept marginal (literally enclosed within the margins as here), like gargoyles on a church facade, kept away from the sacred interior.

The text is from Mark, 16:15-16, ‘Euntes in mundum universum, praedicate evangelium omni creaturae…’ to be said the Monday after Ascension.

Stock No.

252875

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Single leaf on vellum from a Book of Hours

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