A CHARMING, OFTEN DRAMATIC, AND SOMETIMES CURIOUS ILLUMIN...

USE OF ANGERS.

      David, Goliath and 11 other Full-Page MiniaturesExpressing Elemental Directness of Emotion Tours[?], ca. 1480 125 x 90 mm. (4 7/8 x 3 1/2"). 155 unnumbered leaves, 1 leaf blank (except for ruling). Pleasing 17th century olive brown morocco framed in triple rules, spine with raised bands, gilt titling, and spine compartments featuring gilt central lozenge containing a flower and framed by scrolls. Numerous one- and two-line gilt initials on blue or red grounds, 12 calendar leaves with the usual burnished gold "KL" on a red or blue background, 12 EFFECTIVELY COMPOSED FULL-PAGE MINIATURES showing, in turn, the Annunciation, Arrest of Christ, Christ before Caiaphas, Christ Carrying the Cross, Christ Nailed to the Cross, the Crucifixion, Descent from the Cross, Entombment, David and Goliath, Pieta, Trinity, and Skeleton in Prayer, all in oblong apertures with curved tops, each with three lines of text beneath (begun by a three-line floral initial), EACH MINIATURE WITH A FULL BRUSHED GOLD BORDER filled with much vegetation, the borders of the first eight illuminations inhabited typically by two attractively realized birds, but with dragons and snails appearing twice, seven additional pages with lavishly decorated borders of colorful flowers, acanthus leaves, and strawberries and inhabited by birds (some fanciful), moths, and snails, these borders with various partial geometrical grounds of brushed gold. Inscription on front flyleaf of the poet and playwright Edward Jerningham (see below), noting that the book was a gift from James Robson, a bookseller located on New Bond Street. Joints lightly scuffed, more seriously at extemities, a few minor light abrasions on covers, but the early very decorative binding completely solid and retaining much of its original appeal. Several of the top curved edges of the miniatures slightly affected by cropping, one miniature with a half-inch marginal tear just entering the border, a few of the miniatures with minor paint loss, intermittent light soiling and a little wrinkling, one leaf with small marginal hole, but generally the miniatures and text in very agreeable condition, with nothing approaching a serious defect. This quaint and occasionally peculiar Book of Hours was created, perhaps in nearby Tours, for an Angevin owner, as is clear from the commemoration in the calendar of three bishops of Angers in west central France--Lesinius (February 13), Maurilius (September 13), and Renatus (November 12). It contains a 12-leaf calendar, the Hours of the Virgin, the Seven Penitential Psalms and Litany, the Office of the Dead, "O Intemerata," and Suffrages for Saints Christopher and Sebastian. It seems that at least two artists were at work here: the illuminated borders are always delicate and occasionally close to exquisite, with carefully drawn foliage and delightful inhabitation in an animated context. The miniatures were painted by someone else, as they are much more about dramatic emotion and much less about convincing visualization. That is not to say that they are without esthetic merit. The Descent from the Cross is a moving scene largely because the artist has emphasized the lifelessness of the body by the grotesque hanging of Christ's head, and the drama of the sombre betrayal miniature is enhanced by the clever use of light amidst a close group of dark and menacing soldiers. But the manuscript makes a memorable mark with a kind of artistry that might be less readily recognized. For example, in the unusual David and Goliath miniature (introducing the Psalms), we are treated to a depiction of the clumsy giant, in full armor and fringed kilt, kneeling, his forehead bleeding, as David raises a large sword to decapitate him. Although one would hardly call this painting great art (the figures are stiff, a sense of three dimensionality is lacking), it has very considerable appeal, not just because of its scarce iconography, but also because it conveys with an elemental, almost childlike, directness one of the most resonant of all biblical moments of triumph. In the same vein, the smiling corpse who introduces the Office of the Dead rises from his tomb, his emaciated face dimly reflected in a mirror hung from a dead tree. This last miniature, also containing an uncommon image, is simply ugly--as it is supposed to be--and the distasteful emotion it conveys is commensurately powerful. The former owner of this manuscript, Edward Jerningham (1737-1812) was, in the words of the Oxford DNB, "an exquisitely affected poet" of considerable range (but not soaring talent) influenced by Gray, Mason, and especially Walpole. He knew a great many of the social and political elite of the period, a number of whom figured prominently "in his highly entertaining correspondence." Jerningham was notoriously dainty, and Sheridan's foppish poet Sir Benjamin Backbite in "The School for Scandal" seems to have been based on him. During the final 27 years of his life, he lived in a modest residence off Grosvenor Square, described in 1809 by his niece as "'dirty, but well-filled with Books.'" $ 45000