Book of Hours
Office of the Dead, Vespers, beginning at psalm 127:8 and running through psalm 145:5
F-fmot
Written in NW France (likely for the Use of Arras or Paris) in the early 15th century. Possibly identical with the Book of Hours sold at Sotheby's London on 20 December 1948, lot 415. "The Property of a Gentleman." Dismembered by Otto or Louise Ege in the late 1940s, leaves used as no. 45 in Ege's "Fifty Original Leaves from Medieval Manuscripts" portfolios, of which 40 were produced and 31 are known
General Information
Original Condition
Current Condition
Book Decoration and Musical Notation
Brief, feathery extensions in ink and colors extending from initials on every page into the margin. One extant miniature with gilt diapered background and full rinceaux border with marginal grotesques.
History
Made in Northwest France, possibly for the Use of Arras (the first three responsories for the Office of the Dead are often found in Books of Hours from Arras).
Note by Otto Ege:
This manuscript leaf came from a Book of Hours, sold probably at one of the famous shrines to which wealthy laymen made pilgrimages. To meet the demand for these books, the monastic as well as the secular scribes produced them in great numbers. The freely drawn, indefinite buds here entirely supplant the ivy, fruits, and realistic wayside flowers which characterized the borders of manuscripts of the preceding half century. The initial letters of burnished gold on a background of old rose and blue with delicate white line decorations maintain the tradition of the earlier period. The vellum is of silk-like quality that often distinguished the manuscripts of France and Italy.