THE PROPHET NAHUM and A MAN PLAYING AN ORGAN, two historiated initials on a leaf of a Bible in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [England, perhaps Cambridge, mid-14th century].
THE PROPHET NAHUM and A MAN PLAYING AN ORGAN, two historiated initials on a leaf of a Bible in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [England, perhaps Cambridge, mid-14th century]. 447 x 310mm, 2 columns of 22 lines (311 x 205mm), containing the text from Micah 7:4 to Nahum 1:5. Provenance : (1) doubtless from the third volume of a four-volume set (BL, Royal MS 1 E.iv, whose dimensions and mise-en-page match, but whose decoration differs, has been suggested as the first volume). (2) Owned by Richard Legh by 1613. (3) Richard Maria Domville (d.1667), of Lymme Hall, Cheshire; given by him in 1665 to: (4) Sir Peter Leycester/Leicester (d.1678), by which time a significant number of leaves were already missing. (5) Owned and dismembered by Myers & Co, Bond St, from 1927 onwards. The present leaf was sold by Myers in a supplement to their Catalogue 260 (June 1927), no 275 (the most expensive item, at £105); it reappeared at auction in Cologne in December 1950 and was bought by: (6) ERIC KORNER (d.1980); his sale at Sotheby’s, 19 June 1990, lot 13. When sold in 1990 this leaf was described as ‘THE FINEST SURVIVING LEAF FROM AN IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY GRAND MID-FOURTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH LECTERN BIBLE’ . ILLUMINATION : The style of illumination is compared by Sandler to the manuscripts produced for Humphrey de Bohun and his family between the 1350s and 1380s: ‘Of surpassing artistic quality and art historical interest, they were made for one of the greatest noble families of their time’, ‘the most important group of English manuscripts of this period’ (L.F. Sandler, Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England; The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohun Family , 2014). Dennison related it more particularly to the Bohun Psalter in Vienna. In 2008 Christopher de Hamel suggested that, as one of the initials on another leaf from the Bible shows a Carmelite friar, and as the earliest known provenance is in Cheshire, it may have come from the Carmelite house in Chester, perhaps commissioned by the Black Prince, son of Edward III, who endowed the house in 1353-58 (for studies on the Bible from which the leaf comes, see L.F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385 , 2 vols, 1986, no 132; L. Dennison, ‘“The Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies”: a Reappraisal’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium , 1986, pp.42-66, at 59 and 66; M.M. Manion, et al., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections , 1989, no 79; C. de Hamel, ‘The Bohun Bible leaves’, Script & Print , 32, 2008, pp.49-63, with a list of known leaves, to which can be added f.2 [Proverbs 1:30-3:7, now in a private collection in England]; P. Kidd, ‘Supplement to the 'Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly , 72, 2009, pp.88-89; C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly: a Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library , 2010, no 47). ONLY SEVEN OTHER LEAVES WITH HISTORIATED INITIALS ARE KNOWN TO EXIST, ALL OF THEM IN FOUR AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS : the Lilly Library, Bloomington; the Art Institute, Chicago; the Morgan Library, New York; and the Free Library, Philadelphia.
THE PROPHET NAHUM and A MAN PLAYING AN ORGAN, two historiated initials on a leaf of a Bible in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [England, perhaps Cambridge, mid-14th century].
THE PROPHET NAHUM and A MAN PLAYING AN ORGAN, two historiated initials on a leaf of a Bible in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [England, perhaps Cambridge, mid-14th century]. 447 x 310mm, 2 columns of 22 lines (311 x 205mm), containing the text from Micah 7:4 to Nahum 1:5. Provenance : (1) doubtless from the third volume of a four-volume set (BL, Royal MS 1 E.iv, whose dimensions and mise-en-page match, but whose decoration differs, has been suggested as the first volume). (2) Owned by Richard Legh by 1613. (3) Richard Maria Domville (d.1667), of Lymme Hall, Cheshire; given by him in 1665 to: (4) Sir Peter Leycester/Leicester (d.1678), by which time a significant number of leaves were already missing. (5) Owned and dismembered by Myers & Co, Bond St, from 1927 onwards. The present leaf was sold by Myers in a supplement to their Catalogue 260 (June 1927), no 275 (the most expensive item, at £105); it reappeared at auction in Cologne in December 1950 and was bought by: (6) ERIC KORNER (d.1980); his sale at Sotheby’s, 19 June 1990, lot 13. When sold in 1990 this leaf was described as ‘THE FINEST SURVIVING LEAF FROM AN IMPORTANT AND EXTREMELY GRAND MID-FOURTEENTH CENTURY ENGLISH LECTERN BIBLE’ . ILLUMINATION : The style of illumination is compared by Sandler to the manuscripts produced for Humphrey de Bohun and his family between the 1350s and 1380s: ‘Of surpassing artistic quality and art historical interest, they were made for one of the greatest noble families of their time’, ‘the most important group of English manuscripts of this period’ (L.F. Sandler, Illuminators and Patrons in Fourteenth-Century England; The Psalter and Hours of Humphrey de Bohun and the Manuscripts of the Bohun Family , 2014). Dennison related it more particularly to the Bohun Psalter in Vienna. In 2008 Christopher de Hamel suggested that, as one of the initials on another leaf from the Bible shows a Carmelite friar, and as the earliest known provenance is in Cheshire, it may have come from the Carmelite house in Chester, perhaps commissioned by the Black Prince, son of Edward III, who endowed the house in 1353-58 (for studies on the Bible from which the leaf comes, see L.F. Sandler, Gothic Manuscripts 1285-1385 , 2 vols, 1986, no 132; L. Dennison, ‘“The Fitzwarin Psalter and its Allies”: a Reappraisal’, in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium , 1986, pp.42-66, at 59 and 66; M.M. Manion, et al., Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections , 1989, no 79; C. de Hamel, ‘The Bohun Bible leaves’, Script & Print , 32, 2008, pp.49-63, with a list of known leaves, to which can be added f.2 [Proverbs 1:30-3:7, now in a private collection in England]; P. Kidd, ‘Supplement to the 'Guide to Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Huntington Library’, Huntington Library Quarterly , 72, 2009, pp.88-89; C. de Hamel, Gilding the Lilly: a Hundred Medieval and Illuminated Manuscripts in the Lilly Library , 2010, no 47). ONLY SEVEN OTHER LEAVES WITH HISTORIATED INITIALS ARE KNOWN TO EXIST, ALL OF THEM IN FOUR AMERICAN INSTITUTIONS : the Lilly Library, Bloomington; the Art Institute, Chicago; the Morgan Library, New York; and the Free Library, Philadelphia.
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.jpg "Quelle: Christie's")
