(405x270mm – 16 x 10 ¾’’) Original leaf from an exceptionally large folio size medieval manuscript Bible.
Two columns of fifty lines, written in attractive bold gothic book hand. Rubricated chapter numbers, initials & marginalia in red & blue. Four three-line initials in pink or blue with white tracery on a pink or blue ground with interiors of a whimsical creature and/or floral design in pink, orange, blue & burnished gold - extending the length of the margins in blue, orange, gold, pink & white & terminating in ivy leaves. THREE fabulous dragon-like creatures (recto)guarding the large initials and looking in the direction of the text; Scribal corrections noted in the margins.
France (Paris), c. 1275-1300 - Dominican ownership (per Otto Ege).
Provenance: Otto Ege Collection (purchased Parke-Bernet 1948). Sister leaves are #14 in Ege Portfolio of 50 Medieval Manuscripts. Currently over 200 leaves from this Bible are in the Schoyen Collection. Another leaf from the parent manuscript is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art (ref 1994.539), a gift of William D. Wixom, at the time the Met Chairman of Medieval Arts and the Cloisters. (For sister leaves see Maggs 1990 Bulletin 15, #62 and Pirages Catalog 54, #6). Reference: Gwara Hand List #14, where current scholarship ascribes it to “Flanders (possibly France), c. 1325”
Text is Jeremiah 19:11 – 23:2: Sic conterum…” (Even so will I break this people, and this city…Sing ye to the Lord, praise the Lord: because he hath delivered the soul of the poor out of the hand of the wicked…).
Shipped unmatted
