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[BOOK OF HOURS LEAF]

Leaf from a Book of Hours, in Dutch translation of Geert Groote, illuminated manuscript on vellum
[northern Netherlands (perhaps Utrecht)
c. 1480]
€400 - €600

"Single leaf, 147 x 108 mm, with single column of 19 lines of a late gothic vernacular bookhand, red rubrics, one-line initials in blue with blue penwork or liquid gold with brown penwork, 2-line initials in burnished gold on blue or dark pink grounds heightened with white penwork, recto with three-quarter border of coloured flowerheads mounted skewer-like on a thin gold bar, each framed by scrolling hairline gold foliage with gold bezants mounted in their stems and terminating in gold flowers, these with occasional acanthus leaf sprays, flowerheads and fruit, one large initial 'G' (opening ""God wilt dencken "", the opening of Sext in the Hours of the Eternal Wisdom) in burnished gold, enclosing foliage picked out in white penwork on blue grounds and encased within angular edged dark pink grounds, one smudged initial on verso, small spots and stains, else good condition"

The striking border decoration of this leaf is characteristic of the so-called Sarijs manuscripts (see L. Wierda, De Sarijs-handschriften. Studie naar een groep laat-middeleeuwse handschriften uit de IJsselstreek, 1995). These were made either by the brethren of Zwolle in the second half of the fifteenth century, or by inmates of the adjacent Domus Parva there, which housed the students of the Latin school of Johannes Cele