72 leaves (plus 3 modern paper endleaves at each end), wants a few leaves from the Office of the Dead, and with a quire misbound at end, else complete, collation: i6, ii3 (last a singleton, this a self-contained textual unit), iii-iv8, v10, vi3 (as second quire), vii-viii8, ix10, x4 (wants a few leaves), xi4 (this last quire should be bound between ix and x), text in a single column of 19 lines of a distinctively angular late gothic bookhand (apart from last original quire, that in a second contemporary hand), capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, one-line initials in gold or blue within black or red penwork, larger initials in gold on blue and dark pink grounds touched with white brushwork, the largest initials with text bars in gold and colours down the inside margin of the text terminating in sprays of single-line foliage with tri-lobed flowers around gold centres (some with blue tips to their petals), six full-page rectangular miniatures in the style of the Masters of the Gold Scrolls group within thin gold and coloured frames, and within full borders of decorated foliage arranged in mirrored sprays of acanthus leaves with occasional interstitial spaces infilled with gold, these pages facing a decorated text page with a large illuminated initial enclosing sprays of foliage and full borders as before, the first miniature damaged in its lower part (most probably through ritual rubbing), edges of leaves trimmed with some affect to decorated borders there, some spots and stains, else good condition, 142 by 110mm.; 19th-century red leather over pasteboards, each board tooled with frame of gilt geometric pattern, small scuffs and bumps (especially to spine), marbled pastedowns and doublures, splitting from book-block at front and becoming loose in binding, in fitted red slipcase
Provenance:
1. Written and illuminated for a Flemish patron perhaps from Flemish-Brabant, with the local saint, Gudula of Brabant, in the Litany (principally worshipped in Brabant and Brussels, where a chapter was founded in her honour in 1047), and St. Lambert of Liège in the Calendar (17 September).
2. David M. Lareu, his nineteenth-century signature on front endleaf and at head of Calendar.
3. Sotheby's, 19 June 1979, lot 68, to 'Moorthammers' (probably L. Moorthammers of Brussels) for £2700.
Text: This volume comprises: a Calendar; Hours of the Cross; the Mass of the Virgin; the Hours of the Holy Spirit; the Passion readings; the Hours of the Virgin ""secundum usum Romane ecclesie"", with Matins, Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, Nones, Vespers and Compline; the Seven Penitential Psalms, ending with a litany of saints and a prayer of indulgence; the Office of the Dead; and the Obsecro te and O intemerata prayers.
Illumination: The large miniatures are:
1. The Crucifixion, with Mary Magdalene and John of Arimathea in attendance and a medieval walled town in the background;
2. The Virgin and Child enthroned before a black cloth embroidered with gold, while angels offer gifts and play music on a lute;
3. Pentecost, with the Virgin seated amidst other saints as the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends from above;
4. The Annunciation to the Virgin, with the Virgin kneeling at her prie-dieu as the angel appears holding a banderole with the inscription ""Ave gratia plena dominus tecum"", and God the father as a bearded man robed in green watches from the upper lefthand corner and the Holy Spirit as a dove descends toward her;
5. Judgement Day, with Christ seated on a golden rainbow, between two blue angels, as the Virgin and St. John kneel in prayer and the dead emerge from their graves;
6. A funeral, with monks singing from an open choirbook as two mourners bow their head before a coffin
