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Guide To Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library
HM 1177View all images for this manuscript BOOK OF HOURS, modern fragment
s. XIX
A bifolium with full page facing miniatures, both modern copies.
1. f. 1v: David penitent, with his hands spread, kneeling on a parapet of his castle, his crown lying on the throne behind him, and
his harp on a desk with an open book; this portion of the painting from the same source as HM 1100, f. 98. In the background, a wide river with an island and a towered bridge spanning the river, similar to the background in Jan van Eyck’s painting of Chancellor Rolin before the Madonna, now in the Louvre1 (see, for example, M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry. The Boucicaut Master, New York, 1968, fig. 493). The outer border consists of 2 long branches of pomegranate and many insects, against a painted gold ground, in the late
fifteenth century French manner.
2. f. 2: Adoration of the Magi, with the Virgin holding the naked Child upright on her lap; she sits to the right of the picture;
the Magi, one of whom is black, approach with their followers from the left; the oldest Magus, with white hair but a young beardless face, already kneels
in adoration, his crown on the ground beside him; the ass and the donkey are in the shed with a sheaf of hay, and a young
shepherd peers in at the scene from a window in the left side of the shed. The outer border consists of 6 medallions of the
Flight into Egypt set in a Renaissance ornament and foliage border.
Parchment, 1 bifolium, with another added around it as flyleaves; 153 × 103 (painted area; 142 × 100) mm.
Bound in an English red morocco folder inscribed on the front cover “An Illuminated Sheet from a 15th Century Manuscript.”
On f. i. verso, in pencil in the upper corner: “8-8-09, pm 1/5.”
Date and source of acquisition by Henry E. Huntington unknown.
Bibliography: De Ricci, 103.Notes1 We are grateful to Prof. James Marrow for noting this coincidence.
Abbreviations
C. W. Dutschke with the assistance of R. H. Rouse et al., Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library (San Marino, 1989). Copyright 1989.
Henry E. Huntington Library and Art Gallery, San Marino, California. Electronic version encoded by Sharon K, Goetz, 2003. All rights to the cataloguing and images in Digital Scriptorium reside with the contributing institutions. |