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Harley MS 2940

Record Id:

040-002048771

Hierarchy Root Ancestor Record Id:

040-002048771

MDARK:

ark:/81055/vdc_100000000761.0x0000d7

LARK:

SLARK:

Format:

ISAD(G)

Reference (shelfmark):

Harley MS 2940

Title:

Book of Hours, Use of Paris

Scope & Content:

This illuminated Book of Hours is one of only two known surviving products of the collaboration of the workshops of the Boucicaut Hours master (active c. 1390-1430) and of the Rohan master (active c. 1410-1440), who were the leading illuminators in 15th-century Paris. The other Book of Hours that resulted from this collaboration is Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 22. It was probably made for a female patron, since two prayers use feminine grammatical forms: 'michi famule tue' (Obsecro te; f. 20v-21r), 'peccatrici miserrime' (O intemerata; f. 24r).

Contents:

ff. 1r-12v: Calendar, Use of Paris, in French.

ff. 13r-18r: Gospel Lessons.

ff. 18v-26v: Prayers.

ff. 26v-35r: Hours of the Trinity.

ff. 35v-37r: The Passion according to St John.

ff. 38r-89v: Hours of the Virgin.

ff. 90r-109v: Penitential Psalms, with litany and collects.

ff. 110r-117v: Hours of the Passion.

ff. 118r-174v: Offices, beginning with the Office of the Holy Spirit.

ff. 175r-183r: Prayer to the Virgin in French, beginning: ‘Dulce dame de misericorde, mere de pitie’.

f. 37v is blank.

Decoration:

6 full-page miniatures with large decorated initials and full foliate borders with animals and birds, some with historiated medallions in the margins, in colours and gold, for the major text divisions (ff. 38r (with medallions), 90r, 110r, 118r, 125r (with medallions), 175r (with an inhabited initial)).

The subject of the miniatures are:

f. 38r: The Anunciation, attributed to the Master of the Boucicaut Hours, with medalions in the margin of the four evangelist symbols and the Agnus Dei.

f. 90r: King David in prayer.

f. 110r: The Crucifixion, attributed to the Master of the Boucicaut Hours.

f. 118r: Pentecost, the Holy Ghost descending with the Virgin in the middle surrounded by the apostles.

f. 125r: A funeral mass, with a coffin covered in a blue and red cloth and mourners in black cloaks.

f. 175r: The Virgin and Child, attributed to the Master of the Rohan Hours.

7 large and small decorated foliate initials, with full foliate borders, in colours and gold, for minor text divisions in the Hours of the Virgin (ff. 49v, 60v, 66v (with a three-sided border), 71r, 74v, 78v, 85r).

Numerous small decorated foliate initials (2 lines) with three-sided foliate borders, in colours and gold.

Small initials and line fillers in gold on red and blue grounds.

Collection Area:

Western Manuscripts

Project / Collection:

Harley Collection

Hierarchy Tree:

[{ "id" : "040-002048771", "parent" : "#", "text" : "Harley MS 2940: Book of Hours, Use of Paris" , "li_attr" : {"class": "orderable"} }]

Hierarchy Record Ids:

032-002045828
040-002048771

Is part of:

Harley MS 1-7661 : Harley Manuscripts

Harley MS 2940 : Book of Hours, Use of Paris

Hierarchy:

032-002045828[2941]/040-002048771

Container:

View / search within Archive / Collection: Harley MS 1-7661

Record Type (Level):

File

Extent:

1 volume

Digitised Content:

Languages:

French, Middle
Latin

Scripts:

Latin

Start Date:

1415

End Date:

1425

Date Range:

c 1420

Era:

Access:

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User Conditions:

Letter of introduction required to view this manuscript

Physical Characteristics:

Materials: Parchment.

Dimensions: 195 x 140 mm (written area 95 x 65 mm).

Foliation: ff. 183 (+ 1 early modern unfoliated paper flyleaf, and 2 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaves (the first of which is pasted to an unfoliated early modern paper flyleaf) at the beginning + 1 unfoliated medieval parchment flyleaf (pasted to an unfoliated early modern paper flyleaf), and 1 unfoliated early modern paper flyleaf at the end).

Script: Gothic.

Binding: British Musem in-house. Diced brown calf; gilt fore-edge, and head and tail edges.

Occasional catchwords, written horizontally (e.g., ff. 36v, 124v, 161v).

Custodial History:

Origin:

Paris.

Provenance:

Possible ownership inscription of the 17th or 18th century: '227' (f. [iii recto]).

The Harley Collection, formed by Robert Harley (b. 1661, d. 1724), 1st earl of Oxford and Mortimer, politician, and Edward Harley (b. 1689, d. 1741), 2nd earl of Oxford and Mortimer, book collector and patron of the arts: inscribed as usual by their librarian, Humfrey Wanley, '5 Septembris, 1720.' (f. [iii recto]).

Edward Harley bequeathed the library to his widow, Henrietta Cavendish, née Holles (b. 1694, d. 1755) during her lifetime and thereafter to their daughter, Margaret Cavendish Bentinck (b. 1715, d. 1785), duchess of Portland; the manuscripts were sold by the Countess and the Duchess in 1753 to the nation for £10,000 (a fraction of their contemporary value) under the Act of Parliament that also established the British Museum; the Harley manuscripts form one of the foundation collections of the British Library.

Information About Copies:

Select digital coverage available for this manuscript: see Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts at http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/welcome.htm.

Publications:

A Catalogue of the Harleian Manuscripts in the British Museum, 4 vols (London: Eyre and Strahan, 1808-12), II (1808), p. 721, no. 2940.

Walter de Gray Birch and Henry Jenner, Early Drawings and Illuminations: An Introduction to the Study of Illustrated Manuscripts (London: Bagster and Sons, 1879), p. 17.

Millard Meiss, with Kathleen Morand and Edith W. Kirsch, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Boucicaut Master (London: Phaidon, 1968), p. 96, figs. 322, 323.

Millard Meiss, with Sharon Off Dunlap Smith and Elizabeth Home Beaton, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols (London: Thames and Hudson, 1974), I, p. 402.

James Douglas Farquhar, Creation and Imitation: The Work of a Fifteenth-Century Manuscript Illuminator, Nova University Studies in the Humanities, 1 (Fort Lauderdale: Nova, 1976), pl. 23.

Gabriele Bartz, Der Boucicaut Meister: Ein unbekanntes Stundenbuch, Illuminationen: Studien und Monographien 1, ed. by Heribert Tenschert (Rotthalmünster: Kölbl, 1999), p. 116.

Janet Backhouse, Illumination from Books of Hours (London: British Library, 2004), no. 27.

Stella Panayotova, ‘The Rohan Masters: Collaboration and Experimentation in the Hours of Isabella Stuart’, in Manuscripta Illuminata: Approaches to Understanding Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, ed. by C. Hourihane (Princeton: Index of Christian Art, 2014), 14-46 (p. 16 n. 21).

Material Type:

Archives and Manuscripts

Legal Status:

Not Public Record(s)

Places:

Paris, France