Original leaf from an important printed & hand-illuminated Book of Hours. Ruled Latin text in red & black on animal vellum. (170 x 113mm – 6 ¾ x 4 3/8’’)
Printed by Thielman Kerver in Paris, c. 1497.
Recto contains the elaborate TITLE PAGE for this early printed Hours - which has Thielman Kerver’s name prominently beneath two unicorns with golden horns standing on their rear legs. Their front legs are on a shield with Thielman Kerver's initials and printers device monogram in the center, which hangs from a leather belt on a tree branch. The unicorn on the left makes eye contact with the woodsman in the border, while the unicorn on the right is watching the uppermost figure sprouting from a flower.Thielman Kerver (active 1497-1522) was one of the most famous early Parisian printers and type engravers. Kerver’s printing shop was at “The Sign of the Unicorn” in the Rue St. Jacques, Paris.
Verso contain the almanac for 24 years (1497 - 1520).
Books of Hours are personal prayer books of a devout & status-conscious society - not only works of art, but cultural documents of their time. They reveal a unique combination of sacred secular imagery - made of the finest materials, by the best craftsmen, for a small audience that could both appreciate & afford them.
Provenance: from a book once in the Collection of Count Paul Durrieu (1855-1925 - Eminent Historian of Late Medieval French Illuminated Manuscripts, and Keeper of Manuscripts in the Biblioteque Nationale).
Presented in an archival 14 x 11'' mat
