Provenance: This leaf belongs to a Flemish Books of Hours produced in Flanders around 1300. Christopher de Hamel identified the manuscript's original owner as Jean III de Ghistelles (c. 1255–1315), Lord of Gistel and Ingelmunster, on the basis of the heraldic banners depicted in its decoration. This attribution has subsequently been questioned by Peter Kidd.

Rosi Schilling identified the manuscript as the "imperfect 13th c. French Horae" recorded by Sir Sydney Cockerell in his diary as having been purchased from Maggs on 20 August 1912. The manuscript was broken up and dispersed in the 1940s by the bookseller Heinrich Eisemann. This leaf, together with a second leaf from the same manuscript, was purchased by Maggs at Sotheby's, 19 December 1955 (lot 28). It was acquired from Maggs, 28 February 1956, for the Alfred and Isabel Reed Collection at the Dunedin Public Library through the bequest of Alfred H. Reed (1875–1975).

Decoration: A three-sided border composed of coloured bars terminating at either end in a drollery and a human face or mask, both embellished with highly burnished gold. Although the drollery has previously been identified as a lion, its form bears little resemblance to a conventional leonine figure.

In the right margin, a standing male figure raises both hands with palms facing outward, a gesture suggestive of aversion or rejection. Rather than dancing, as proposed in some earlier descriptions, the figure appears to be recoiling from something unpleasant or threatening.

There is one major illuminated two-line initial on a blue and pink ground ornamented with white tracery. Four one-line initials alternating blue flourished in red and burnished gold flourished in grey. Line fillers in red, blue, and gold.

Text: The closing verse of Psalm 64:14 on the recto, followed by antiphons, and the opening verses of the Canticle of Ezechias (Isaiah 38:10-12) on the verso, part of lauds in the Office of the Dead.

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

• Rose Faunce, Australian National University
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