St Paul, historiated initial on a leaf from a Bible, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Oxford, 3rd quarter 13th century]

An illuminated leaf from a 13th-century Oxford Bible with extensive English and Scottish provenance.

c.186 x 130mm, two columns of 54 lines, ruled space c.135 x 85mm, the text comprising Romans 14:6 to the end, followed by the Prologue to Corinthians and ending in 1 Corinthians 1:10, the historiated initial depicting St Paul, with a fool? gazing up at him at the bottom of the extension, one small illuminated initial, initials in red or blue with penwork extensions in blue and red, headings and chapter numbers in blue and red, rubrics in red, the columns numbered in medieval ink. Arabic numerals ‘1651’–‘1654’ (the column-numbering cropped on the verso, some marginal staining). Mounted and framed.

Provenance:
(1) The parent volume was probably produced in Oxford: the style of illumination is English, and Oxford seems to have been the main center for the production of such Bibles; the numbering of the columns with 13th-century Arabic numerals also suggests use in an academic environment.

(2) Owned in the 14th century by an unidentified English Carthusian house: the parent volume had a note referring to use in the refectory, and notes indicating liturgical readings, including the letters ‘p’, ‘s’, and ‘t’ (for primus, secundus, tertius); the present leaf has ‘t’ next to Romans 14:21; 'p' next to 15:17; 's' next to 16:10; and 't' next to 16:20. There were only eight Carthusian houses in England before the 15th century, six of them founded between 1343 and 1398.

(3) 16th-century names and ownership notes.

(4) Charles Manning, late 18th- or early 19th-century.

(5) Charles Kirkpatrick Sharpe (1781–1851), who ‘resided in Edinburgh as an eccentric literary recluse and friend of Sir Walter Scott’.

(6) Sir John Jaffray (1818–1901), Scottish journalist and newspaper proprietor.

(7) Sotheby’s, 14 October 1946, lot 147; bought by:

(8) A.G. Thomas (1911–1992), English bookseller; kept for more than 25 years as part of his personal collection; reproduced in his Fine Books, 1967, fig. 20; and included in the posthumous sale of his library at Sotheby’s, 22 June 1993, lot 6 (‘the book is certainly English and may be Oxford work’), bought by Fogg; broken up probably by Bruce Ferrini, with his erased pencil stock number.

(9) Maggs, European Bulletin, 21 (1997) and subsequently Catalogue 1262 (1998).

Illumination:
The secondary decoration is typical of mid-13th-century Oxford Bibles, and the facial style, with arched eyebrows over round, staring eyes, can be found in the work of William de Brailes and other contemporary Oxford illuminators. The Bible is discussed and illuminated leaves are listed in P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II (2019), no 11; citing the present leaf as Maryland, private collection.