185 leaves (plus one original endleaf at back, and 2 modern paper endleaves at each end), complete, collation probably: i-ii6, iii10, iv-v8, vi10, vii6, viii-xiv8, xv9 (iii a cancelled blank), xvi9 (i a cancelled blank), xvii6, xviii10, xix6, xx10, xxi6, xxii10, xxiii6, xxiv3 (text continuous, last probably a cancelled blank), written in single column of 16 lines of a fine late gothic bookhand, pale red rubrics, one- and 2-line initials in liquid gold on blue or red grounds, larger initials in brown acanthus leaves edged in liquid gold hairline strokes on dark blue grounds, six small rectangular miniatures, all with three-quarter borders of realistic flower cuttings and insects strewn on a dull-gold ground, eight full-page arch-topped miniatures, each within similar full decorated borders (some enclosing birds) and facing pages with large initials (as described above) and full decorated borders, some flaking from small areas of painting, a few smudges and spots, else good condition, 84 by 64mm.; bound in late 18th- or 19th-century olive morocco over pasteboards, gilt-tooled with floral frame on each board, two working clasps on foredge, gilt-edge, doublures printed with green stars, some bumps to edges, and split from book-block at front
Provenance
1. Written and illuminated in the second half of the fifteenth century for a Flemish patron: with SS. Godeleva in the Calendar (6 July), Bavo of Ghent (1 October, in red), and Hubert of Liege (3 November).
2. Antonio Capucho (b. 1945), Portuguese politician: his tiny bookplate pasted to front board.
Text:
The volume comprises: a Calendar; the prayer Salve sancta facies nostri; the Hours of the Cross; the Hours of the Holy Spirit; the Mass of the Virgin; the Gospel readings; the Hours of the Virgin "secundum usum romam", with Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers and Compline; the Officium Beate Marie; the Obsecro te and O intemerata prayers; the Seven Penitential Psalms, ending with a Litany and prayers; the Office of the Dead, ending with prayers.
Illumination: The artist here was a skilled one, working within the bosum of the Ghent-Bruges tradition. His portrait of Christ as salvator mundi owes much to the celebrated artist, Gerard David (c. 1460-1523), who ran workshops in Utrecht and Bruges, with a particularly close comparison for the figure and composition here in a miniature painted by David c. 1485-90, once in the Lehman collection, and now New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1975.1.2486. The face of Christ here, however, is jowlier, pointing to the compositions of an artist who was reminiscent of the Maximilian Master, and worked alongside some of the greatest artists of his day on a Book of Hours, painted in two stages, first in Valenciennes c. 1489 and then in Bruges and Ghent in c. 1495-1500 (see Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, no. 90, especially fig. 90c). His other figures, with their chubby round faces and detailed hair, point to Bruges work of the 1470s and later (cf. ibid., no. 53, especially fig. 53b). The miniatures here comprise: (i) Christ as salvator mundi, full-page miniature with a half-length portrait with Christ holding a crystal orb topped with an ornate gold cross, the border with a peacock, birds a snail and butterflies; (ii) the Crucifixion, full-page miniature, the borders with birds and butterflies; (iii) Pentecost, a full-page miniature, the borders with birds and butterflies; (iv) the Virgin and Child, enthroned under a red canopy, the borders with two peacocks and butterflies; (v) the Annunciation to the Virgin, full-page miniature, the borders with birds and butterflies; (vi) the Meeting at the Golden Gate, small miniature, three-quarter border with realistic fly; (vii) the Nativity, small miniature, three-quarter border; (viii) the Annunciation to the Shepherds, small miniature, three-quarter border; (ix) the Visitation of the Magi, small miniature, three-quarter border with realistic fly; (x) the Flight into Egypt, small miniature, three-quarter border with realistic snail; (xi) the Coronation of the virgin by God the father and Christ, full-page miniature, realistic bird, fly and butterflies in margin; (xii) the Pietà, with the Virgin kneeling in prayer before Christ's body as it is held up by an angel, small miniature, three-quarter border with realistic butterfly; (xiii) David in prayer, full-page miniature, borders with butterflies and a snail; (xiv) the meeting of the three living and the three dead, full-page miniature, with three young men on horseback riding up to the cross-marker as three rotting corpses appear carrying their own coffins, the young men in alarm and the horses shying away, borders with a snail, a realistic fly and a butterfly
