Original leaf from a medieval manuscript Book of Hours, with illuminations by a Master of the Boucicaut School. 15 lines of red-ruled, Latin text, written with dark brown ink in gothic book-hand script on animal vellum. (127 x 92mm).
One two-line illuminated initial in burnished gold on blue and pink ground extending into the margin with a delicate rinceaux design in burnished gold, red and blue; thirteen one-line illuminated initials alternating in blue with delicate red penwork and burnished gold with delicate blue penwork.
Northern France (Paris), c. 1420-30.
The two-line illuminated ''M'' begins Psalm 56 (King James 57) 1-10: ''Miserere...'' (Have mercy on me, O God, have mercy on me: for my soul trusteth in thee. And in the shadow of thy wings will I hope, until iniquity pass away. I will cry to God the most High; to God who hath done good to me. He hath sent from heaven and delivered me: he hath made them a reproach that trod upon me. God hath sent his mercy and his truth and he hath delivered my soul from the midst of the young lions. I slept troubled. The sons of men, whose teeth are weapons and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword. Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth...).
Provenance: Sotheby's - ex G. Barilla of Geneva, and formerly Frederick Fowler collection (England c. 1820's).
Shipped in archival 14x11'' mat.