Original leaf from a medieval manuscript Book of Hours, with illuminations by a Master of the Boucicaut School. 15 lines of red-ruled, Latin text, written with dark brown ink in gothic book-hand script on animal vellum.(127 x 92mm)
Two two-line illuminated initials and one one-line illuminated initial in burnished gold on blue and pink ground extending into the margin with a delicate rinceaux design in burnished gold, red and blue.
Northern France (Paris), c. 1420-30.
This leaf continues an uncommon section for a Book of Hours - the Hours of John the Baptist - Hour of Vespers.
The two two-line illuminated initials begin medieval prayers.
The one-line illuminated ''C'' begins the Hour of Compline: ''Converte...'' (Convert us O God our savior).
Provenance: Sotheby's - ex G. Barilla of Geneva, and formerly Frederick Fowler collection (England c. 1820's).
Books of Hours are personal prayer books of a devout and status-conscious society and are not only works of art, but cultural documents of their time. They reveal a unique combination of sacred and secular imagery - made of the finest materials, by the best craftsmen, for a small audience, which could both appreciate and afford them.
Presented in an archival 14x11'' mat
