Large leaf with a large initial 'S' (opening an introit for the Mass of the Virgin: ""Salve sancta parens..."") in blue with white brushwork, enclosing a scene of the Virgin and Child seated on a red cloth decorated with gold designs, as a tonsured Cistercian monk kneels at their feet with his hands clasped in prayer (indicating the use of the parent volume by a house of that order), the whole initial on dull gold grounds, and with a decorated border on two sides with flowers, fruit and butterflies painted in Ghent/Bruges style on a dull gold ground, red rubrics, 8 lines of text accompanying music on a 4-line stave (rastrum: 24mm.), other side of leaf with same number of lines of text, red rubrics, folio number 'CCCXX' in red at head, one simple red initial decorated with faded purple penwork, and another initial enclosing yellow acanthus leaves and decorated with a penwork banderole signed by the artist (see below), some small scuffs and losses to decorated borders and tiny spots and chips to historiated initial, slight cockling, else in good and fresh condition, 500 by 320mm
The artist here signs his name in the banderole on one of the small initials as ""F[rate]r Ioh[ann]es de Fo[n]te"" (Brother John 'de Fonte'), and his title suggests that he was a member of the Cistercian community that originally used the parent book. The placename element 'Font' is common, but given the origin of the leaf the most likely sites are Namur (Latin: 'Fontanella') or Fontenoy in Hainult (""Fonteniacum""). He is not, to the best of our knowledge, recorded anywhere else. If, as seems likely, the monastic foundation that used (and perhaps produced) the parent manuscript of this leaf, was in the region of Ghent or Bruges, then it must have been the male Cistercian foundation of Ten Duinen in Ghent (founded 1107; suppressed 1796) or Ter Doest in Bruges (affiliated to the Order in 1175; suppressed 1796)
