ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT LEAVES ON VELLUM.

Six illuminated leaves from the calendar of a Book of Hours, with miniatures on recto and verso of each leaf, showing the labors of the months and the appropriate zodiacal signs.

      Central France (Bourges or Tours?): c. 1490. Each miniature c. 40 x 80 mm, on leaves 215 x 135 mm, 33 lines of text in a neat lettre batarde in gold, blue, and red. Each mounted, in fine condition. The complete occupational calendar from what must have been a glorious French Book of Hours. Each leaf has a delightful miniature at the head, as well as an illuminated panel border to the side of the text, illuminated initials and lettering &c. "Artists apparently had complete freedom in how they depicted the occupations and signs of the zodiac [in calendars]. In routine Books of Hours the treatment of these subjects is conventional or perfunctory; but in the more costly examples artists had scope for landscape painting and naturalistic observation." Harthan, Books of Hours, pp.24-26. At the foot of the first leaf is a black ink stamp of ownership (possibly ducal?) with the rather sombre motto (as yet unidentified) "Sic Undique Luctus" (Thus misery is all around).