Book of Hours c 1520-30 - Noel Bellemare & Assistants

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Single leaf from a manuscript Book of Hours.  21 lines of Latin text in elegant humanist script, in dark brown ink on animal vellum.(112x64 mm – 4 3/8 x 2 ½’’) 

One two-line illuminated initial in gold on black ground with gold tracery; thirteen illuminated one-line initials, one illuminated paraph, & eleven line extenders alternating in gold on black ground and black on gold ground. A gold cord-like border outlined in black surrounds the text. France, Paris or Tours, circa 1520-30.

The one-line illuminated “T” begins Psalm 40 (King James 41) 11-14: “Tu autem…” (But thou, O Lord, have mercy on me, and raise me up again: and I will requite them. By this I know, that thou hast had a good will for me…). 

The two-line illuminated “Q” begins Psalm 41 (KJ 42) 1-8: “Quemadmodum…” (As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after thee, O God.  My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come appear before the face of God?...).

1520’s Hours Workshop is now identified as Noel Bellemare and his Assistants, (previously named as the work of the “Doheny Master” or “Master of the Getty Epistles”). The workshop produced luxury work - manuscripts evidently made for women of the royal court, thus the knotted rope of the “Cordelieres” as an emblematic frame for the text leaves.  Four leaves from this manuscript were first described by Myra Orth in “An Exhibition of European Drawings and Manuscripts 1480-1880”, and cited in the J. Paul Getty Museum  Journal, vol. 16 (1988). Provenance: Baron Jerome Pichon (1812-96); the incomplete parent manuscript was offered in Fogg cat. 14 (1991), subsequently dispersed. Sister leaves appear in Cleveland Museum, Blackburn Collection, nrs. 69-71.

Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat

  • Inventory# IM-12591
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