Current Location: Gallery 32 (Rothschild)
Titles
Benedictional
Entities
Categories
Description
PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, iii modern paper flyleaves + 82 fols. + ii modern paper flyleaves, 214 x 162 (165 x 97) mm, 19 – 20 long lines, ruled in hard point, quire marks.
BINDING: 19th century, before 1818, black leather over pasteboards, rectangular frame with floral motifs, blue and white endbands, spine with signature ‘Rel. P. Simier’; this is René Simier (1772-1843), one of the most important binders of the Restoration in France, who became binder to Louis XVIII in 1818 and began to sign his binding ‘Simier R. du Roi’ (Travier 2003).
CONTENTS: fols. 1v – 66v Blessings for the Temporal and Sanctoral combined, beginning with Christmas Eve and ending with the Advent season; fols. 66v – 73r Blessings for the Common of the Saints; fols. 73v – 75r Bessings for the dedication of a church; fols. 75r – 82r Blessings for bishops, a synod, kings, fasts and various special occasions.
DECORATION: fol. 1r Sketch made with a stylus: decorative page with interlaced border, in lower half bishop reading a benediction from a book held for him by a cleric who is accompanied by two other figures.
ORNAMENTATION: Gold and silver initials [9 – 11 ll.] formed of interlaced bands outlined in red, some with foliate motifs, others monogrammed (e.g. IN Nomine, fol. 1v; BENEdictione in cotidianis diebus, fol. 13v; D(omin)NE, fol. 50r) at major text divisions; gold and silver initials [3 – 5 ll.] outlined in red with interlaced bands, foliate motifs, and occasional small dragon heads (e.g. fol. 6v, 29v) for benedictions; display script in red uncials [1 – 2 ll.] filled in with plain dabs or strokes of fluid gold for the headings of the major benedictions; display script in red or black with gold for the lesser headings and Amens.
Notes
History note: Made for a bishop of Augsburg; Alexander Douglas Hamilton (1767 – 1852), tenth Duke of Hamilton, his MS 73 in the catalogue of the Hamilton collection privately printed by Sotheby’s in 1882; purchased by the Prussian State in 1882; re-sold by the Prussian State via Trübner, Strasbourg, with Sotheby’s, London, 23 May 1889, lot 5, and purchased for the Museum.
Method of acquisition: Bought
(1889)
by
Sotheby's
Mirador deep zoom
IIIF Manifest
