Beschreibung:

A Tournai Rosary Prayerbook
Rosary Prayerbook, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Tournai c.1500-1510]
An exceptional Rosary Prayerbook, where meaning is conveyed by images independent of words, illuminated in the circle of the Master of Hugues de Loges in Tournai.
177 x 117 mm. iii paper + 71 leaves + ii + iii paper, modern foliation 1-59 (followed here) beginning after the calendar on the thirteenth leaf: 1-26, 3-68, 76 (of 8 lacking v and vii), 86 (of 8 lacking ii and vi), 97 (of 8 lacking i), 108, later signatures, 15 lines, ruled space: 94 x 66mm, prickings, line endings in blue and gold, one-line initials alternately in gold flourished with dark blue or in blue flourished with red, two-line initials in gold on pink and blue grounds, 37 large miniatures with three-sided borders of acanthus and fruit and flower sprays on grounds with gold or divided grounds (lacking five leaves, probably with miniatures after ff.36, 37, 39, 42 and 44, wear to first four ff. of calendar, smudging to miniatures ff.1, 9, slight wear to corner of border f.10, some cockling, pencillled annotations). English 19th-century binding of red Morocco gilt, title VITA CHRISTI MS gilt (corners and joints rubbed, light scuffing to lower cover).
Provenance:
(1) The calendar and style suggest an origin in Tournai. The feasts in red include Sts Piat who converted Tournai (1 Oct), Eleutherius, its first Bishop, and his translation (20 Feb, 25 Aug) and Nicaise, first Archbishop of Reims (14 Dec); in black appear Amand (6 Feb), the dedication of the Church of Our Lady, Tournai Cathedral (9 May), Medard (8 June), Nicaise’s translation (23 July), Ghislain (9 Oct). Nicaise, Quentin, Piat and Eleutherius are invoked In the Litany. The mottoes Pensons a la mort, Let us think on death, f.34v, and Dieu en ayde, God helping, may God help (with it), f.38, might have belonged to the original owners. The second appears by St Adrian, an unusual choice to head the saints: he could have been the name patron of the first owner.
The manuscript was clearly used: on the parchment endleaves, prayers were added and pilgrim badges attached, the traces left include the figure of St Adrian standing on the lion that failed to kill him, from his shrine at Geraardsbergen, see lot 9.
(2) James Comerford FSA (1806-1881): his armorial bookplate inside upper cover; Comerford built on the collection he inherited from his father, also James Comerford (1787-1833), focusing on English topography and devotional books; his sale Sotheby’s, 16 November 1881, lot 836, with 37 miniatures, bought by Neligan (annotated catalogue online at Hathi Trust).
(3) The Rev. Dr William Chadwick Neligan (1793-1887): Rector of St Mary’s in Cork and antiquarian collector of, and effectively dealer in, books, coins and antiquities. His presence in Sotheby’s rooms even towards the end of his life is attested in a print of a book auction published in The Graphic, 26 May 1888 (see blog by Laurence Worms at https://ashrarebooks.com/2016/01/07/the-book-hunters-of-1888-8/ ).
(4) Rushton M. Dorman of Chicago; his sale, New York, George Leavitt & Co, 5-8 April 1886, lot 6. The Dorman library of 4000 volumes included 88 manuscripts.
(5) New York, Parke Bernet Galleries, Sales 1242-1250, 1951, lot 474, p.108.
(6) The Schøyen Collection, MS 12.
Content:
Calendar in French for Tournai, first six leaves; a visual rosary devotion on the life of Christ and selected saints, consisting of large miniatures signalling the different events or saints, each followed by the Lord’s Prayer and the Hail Mary, the opening sequence with other devotions including the creed and confession, in the masculine; after the miniature of the Arrest of Christ the text on ff.15-25v is that of the Hours of the Cross for the seven miniatures from Christ before Pilate to the Crucifixion, with f.26 a ruled blank and the text on f.32, a ruled blank, supplied by a 16th-century hand, ff.1-44v; the Penitential Psalms, lacking opening, and litany ff.45-59v; added prayer in Dutch on the consecrated host, dated 1596, first endleaf verso; prayers and verses in Dutch, the first dated 1715, second endleaf.
Strings of undifferentiated prayerbeads were used for devotions centred on the life of Christ or the Virgin or combinations of the two, a practice likened to weaving a rose garland for the Virgin, hence rosary, a term current long before the modern rosary of differentiated beads and set devotions. In the 15th century, a sequence of fifty events in Christ’s life, each following the Hail Mary and the Lord’s Prayer, written 1409-1415 by the Carthusian, Dominic of Prussia, was widely circulated; so was the Marian sequence promoted by the Dominican Alanus de Rupe (d.1475). These were two among many that proliferated in print, as did testimonials to the efficacy of rosary devotions.
A manuscript allowed the commissioner to select the contents: the inclusion of Job among the saints and the integration of the Hours of the Cross are unusual features of the Schøyen Rosary, as is the reliance on image alone to point devotion. Except for the Hours, the minimal, repeated text leaves the identity of two saints uncertain, ff.30 and 32. The scribe apparently designed his work as he progressed: realising after the Hours that, by leaving the rest of f.25v and f.26 blank, he could have miniature and text on facing verso and recto. Unfortunately, f.32, conjoint with f.25v, was also left blank, leaving a later owner to supply the missing prayers.
Illumination:
The colourfully direct miniatures go well beyond the subjects familiar from Books of Hours. They share many characteristics with the work of the Master of Hugues de Loges, named from a copy of Diego San Pietro’s Prison d’amour (Paris, BnF ms fr. 24382) made for the last French governor of Tournai between 1518 and 1521. The Master’s activity in Tournai has been charted by Dominique Vanwijnsberghe from about 1510 to 1525 (D. Vanwijnsberghe, « Mes meilleures heures de Nostre Dame ». Les Heures de La Tramerie, un manuscrit vagabond, 2022). The female and youthful figures of the Schøyen Rosary have facial features very like those, elaborated on a much larger scale, in the Chronicle of the Bishops of Tournai datable between 1506 and 1513 (Tournai, Cathédrale, ms B1). The La Tramerie Hours, dated c.1510-1520 (Tournai, Bibliothèque communale, Fonds Lemay ms 1) provide closer comparisons for the landscapes with their oddly flat and forking bare trees in the distance, massed green midground trees and foreground plants conveyed by dashes and dots. Figures in the smaller Rosary Prayerbook tend to be shorter with larger heads, closer to the proportions of the more painterly figures in the historiated initials of the name work in Paris. The Rosary Prayerbook of c.1500-1510 is either by the Master himself at an earlier stage or by an illuminator who shared many of his motifs and ideas.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows: Annunciation f.1, Visitation f.4, Nativity f.5. Circumcision f.6, Adoration of the Magi f.7, Presentation in the Temple f.8, Massacre of the Innocents f.9, Palm Sunday f.10, Last Supper f.11, Christ washing the Apostles’ feet f.12, Agony in the Garden f.13, Arrest of Christ f.14, Christ before Pilate f.15, Flagellation f. 16v, Crowning with Thorns f.18, Christ returned to Pilate f.19v, Carrying of the Cross f.21, Nailing to the Cross f.22v, Crucifixion f.24, Lamentation f.27v, Entombment f.28v, Harrowing of Hell f.29v, Resurrection f.30v, Three Maries at the Tomb f.31v, Christ appearing to Mary Magdalene f.32v, Incredulity of Thomas f.33v, Ascension f.34v, Pentecost f.35v, Last Judgement f.36v, St Adrian f.38, possibly St Denis f.30, Mass of St Gregory f.40, St Fiacre f.41, possibly St Benedict f.42, Job on the Dungheap f.43, St Margaret f.44.