Book of Hours: MS McClean 96

Titles

Book of Hours

Maker(s)

Author: Grote, Geert

Entities

• Book of hours

Categories

• Illuminated manuscript
• Manuscript

Description

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION: Parchment, iii modern parchment flyleaves + i contemporary parchment flyleaf + 167 fols. + iii modern parchment flyleaves, 169 x 122 (95 x 62) mm, 19 long lines, ruled in brown ink.

BINDING: nineteenth century, blue velvet over pasteboard, edges gilt

CONTENTS: fols. 1r – 12v Calendar; fols. 14r – 47v Hours of the Virgin; fols. 48r – 68r Hours of the Eternal Wisdom; fols. 68r – 75r Prayers to the Sacrament and Christ; fols. 76r – 93v Hours of the Cross; fols. 95r – 116v Hours of the Holy Spirit; fols. 117r – 125r Penitential Psalms; fols. 125r – 134r Litany; fols. 135r – 166v Office of the Dead.

DECORATION: Six historiated initials in blue with white acanthus motifs on gold grounds with one-sided gold, blue and pink bar borders, and three-sided acanthus and floral borders: fol. 14r Hours of the Virgin, Matins, [H, 9 ll.] Virgin and Child, angels in border; fol. 48r Hours of the Eternal Wisdom, [M, 10 ll.] Christ blessing and holding orb; fol. 76r Hours of the Cross, [W, 9 ll.] Crucifixion with Virgin and St John, goats and grapes on gold rods in border; fol. 95r Hours of the Holy Spirit, [H, 9 ll.] Pentecost; fol. 117r Penitential Psalms, [H, 9 ll.] Last Judgement, Christ seated on rainbow, orb at feet, and displaying wounds, peacock in border; fol. 135r Office of the Dead, [M, 9 ll.] Souls praying in Purgatory, bear in border.

ORNAMENTATION: Gold initials [2 – 5 ll.] on red and blue white-patterned grounds with one-sided gold bar-borders with gold-leaf spraywork extensions; alternate gold and blue initials [1 – 2 ll.] with violet and red pen-flourished infill and extensions; capitals highlighted in red.

Notes

History note: Still in the Netherlands in the seventeenth century when prayers in Dutch and a short text on ‘suffering’ in Dutch verse were added on the contemporary flyleaf at front and on fol. 166v respectively; James Thomson Gibson Craig (his bookplate with motto Deo et Regi inside upper cover); his sale, Sotheby’s, London, 23 March 1888, lot 691; purchased by Frank McClean (1837 – 1904); his bequest, 1904.