Provenance: This leaf comes from one of the earliest surviving Flemish Books of Hours, produced around 1300. The manuscript was long thought to have been made for Jean III de Ghistelles (c. 1255–1315), Lord of Gistel and Ingelmunster, Flanders, although this attribution has been questioned by Peter Kidd (Medieval Manuscripts Provenance, November 2017).

Rosy Schilling identified the manuscript as having once belonged to Sir Sydney Cockerell. It was broken up and dispersed in the 1950s by Heinrich Eisemann, and its surviving leaves are now divided among public and private collections. 

This leaf was acquired for the Reed Collection from Maggs Bros on 28 February 1956. Maggs Bros purchased it, together with a second leaf from the same manuscript, at a Sotheby’s sale on 19 December 1955 (lot 28).

Decoration: A three-sided border composed of bars, terminating at either end in a drollery and a human face (or mask), both embellished with highly burnished gold leaf. Although some have identified the drollery as a lion, its form bears little resemblance to a leonine figure.
In the right margin, a standing male figure raises both hands with palms facing outward, a gesture suggesting the rejection of something unpleasant or threatening. Although usually identified as a dancing figure, the pose is more consistent with a gesture of aversion. 

There is one major illuminated two-line initial on a blue and pink ground ornamented with white tracery integrated into the border design. Four one-line initials alternating blue flourished in red and burnished gold flourished in light blue. The text is finished with line-ending ornaments of varied designs in combinations of red, blue, and gold.

Text: The closing verse of Psalm 64:14 on recto, followed by antiphons, then the opening verses of the Canticle of Ezechias from Isaiah 38:10-12 on verso, from the Liturgy of the Hours at Lauds in the Office of the Dead.

The Reed leaf comes directly after MS 446.1. Houghton Library, Harvard University (https://fragmentarium.ms/overview/F-rgw4)

• Rose Faunce, Australian National University
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