BIBLE

Manuscript Psalter

      1475 1475 - (BIBLE-PSALTER). Illuminated Manuscript Psalter on parchment. Southeastern France, likely Savoy, circa 1475. Small octavo (4 by 5-1/2 inches), modern full brown calf, raised bands, brass clasps, uncut; ff. 184. Housed in a custom clamshell box. $26,000. Illuminated 15th-century manuscript psalter on parchment with a miniature of King David with a harp, illuminated throughout in gold, green, red, blue, brown and black inks. Written in dark brown ink in a batarde bookhand on 22 lines, rubricated in red, with alternating red and blue capitals, two-line gold initials with white tracery infill on blue and red parti-colored grounds, occasional three- and four-line initials in blue or red on highly burnished gold backgrounds. Most pages have several ascenders, occasionally with elaborate strapwork. The miniature, prefacing the Psalter, depicts King David with a harp in a landscape, framed by craggy mountains, in the background a sea with boats and in the distance a castle: tiny red and white flowers decorate the landscape, and the name "David Davides" is written in the sky above his head. Surrounding the image-and seven other pages-is a full foliate border of acanthus leaves, fruit, flowers and animals and grotesques, in red, green, blue and brown inks and liquid gold. The style of the miniature and of the borders recalls that of Savoyard illumination at the end of the third quarter of the 15th century, including the highly saturated colors and the red used in the turrets of the castles in the miniature, both reminiscent of Peronet Lamy and other artists working at the courts of the dukes of Savoy. This Ferial Psalter was made for an ecclesiastic (probably a bishop), whose unidentified arms, a red rampant lion on a gold ground with a blue star, occur in the lower margin on folio 47 and whose cross and initials appear in the border of the miniature on folio 26. At one point it was in the possession of the Jesuit College of Nancy (with their inscription on folio 1, dated 1755, from where it was likely deaccessioned with the suppression of the Jesuits in France. The psalter itself is preceded by a calendar, the Nativity Office of the Virgin Mary, a Short Office of the Dead, and other prayers, comprising the first 25 folios. The remaining 159 folios are the Psalter, in the usual eight divisions. Ferial Psalters are uncommon from this time period, when the favored type of manuscript had become the Book of Hours. Without at least one folio of the calendar at the beginning, rest complete. Bookplate. Old auction description to front free endpaper. Expected marginal embrowning. A wonderful item. [Attributes: Signed Copy]