AN ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT LEAF WITH A SMALL MINIATURE DEPICTING MARY MAGDALENE HOLDING A GOLD UNGUENT JAR FROM A BOOK OF HOURS IN LATIN.

TEXT FROM THE SUFFRAGES.

      Paris, ca. 1460 - Single column 15 lines of text on either side in a fine regular gothic book hand. Attractively matted. Rubrics in red verso with one one-line initial in colors and burnished gold as well as with a swirling quarter panel border featuring flowers leaves strawberries and many burnished gold ivy leaves on hairline stems; the recto with a three-quarter panel border of similar design though more lavish (and with a vertical bar border of red blue and burnished gold between the text and the border in the fore margin as well as two handsome two-line initials in colors and gold one of them sprouting ivy leaves in the margin); recto also WITH A SMALL AND EXTREMELY CHARMING MINIATURE OF MARY MAGDALENE (measuring approximately 24 x 29 mm.) the scene showing the Magdalene dressed in pink and blue holding the unguent jar which is her symbol standing among bright green hills dotted with spade-shaped trees a thin white meandering path helping to create a sense of recession in space and on the horizon a golden gateway flanked by towers and a pair of gray monolithic rocky outcroppings shaped roughly like pyramids. One miniscule wormhole affecting part of a single letter on either side a hint of soiling to verso otherwise very fine with gold and paint entirely intact and with excellent margins. Mary Magdalene the sinner saved by Christ is popularly identified with the woman who in the Gospels anoints Christ's feet with expensive unguents to the dismay of the thrifty Apostles (Jesus accepts her gift as fitting knowing that he is about to die.) In this way the unguent jar became the symbol for Mary Magdalene who is here depicted in her worldly finery her long blonde locks streaming down her back--rather than as the ascetic which legend claimed she became.