Paris, c.1300

A leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1300]

A leaf from an extremely early French Book of Hours with whimsical line-fillers, and a delightfully painted horse charging into the text.

c.137 x 84mm. 20 lines written in dark brown ink in a gothic hand, the text from the Office of the Dead in a Book of Hours, beginning in Psalm 7: '[in terra vitam meam et] gloriam meam in pulverem deducat' and ending in the first lection: 'ut glutiam salivam meam', versal initials alternately in red or blue with contrasting penwork, one illuminated initial, initials touched in red, rubric in red, 7 different types of line-filler, one a bird, one a fantastical beast, the others geometric, one elaborately modelled painting of a horse (upper margin a little cropped, else in excellent condition).

Provenance:
(1) The already fragmentary parent manuscript of 72 leaves was sold at Sotheby's on 5 December 1989, lot 104. A note inside the upper cover of the manuscript recorded the ownership by a priest Jacobus Castellus, gifted to him by his father Franciscus Castellus, of Gruyeres (Switzerland), on 1 August 1619.

(2) The 1989 description described the armorial bookplate of Matias Errázuriz (1897-1941), Argentine bibliophile and art collector.