Western Manuscripts and Miniatures

An extensively published leaf from one of the most ambitious Southern French Bibles projects once belonging to Sir Chester Beatty
 
235 × 335 mm, single parchment leaf from a large-format illuminated Bible, ruled in plummet for two columns of 40 lines, written below the top line in a fine Gothic textualis script in dark brown ink, with running titles in alternating red and blue letters, chapter numbers and initials in red and blue with contrasting penwork flourishing extending into the margins, prickings survive along the upper and lower edges, and marginal notes to the rubricator remain at the outer edges, only slightly cropped. ONE HISTORIATED INITIAL ‘P’ extending nearly the full height of the left column, the letter formed in blue and rose with white penwork decoration and gold bezants, enclosing Saint Paul holding a sword in one hand and a book in the other, on a blue patterned field, the long descender terminates in a lively human-headed hybrid figure within foliate ornament. Minor cockling and staining to parchment, small losses and irregularities at outer margins, slight rubbing to decoration, else in excellent condition with fresh illumination and wide margins.
 
The parent manuscript of this leaf was a monumental Bible produced in southern France in the fourteenth century, an attribution supported by its parchment preparation, Gothic script, brown ink, and later sixteenth-century provenance. Earlier descriptions, beginning with the 1969 Sotheby’s catalogue, have suggested a more specific origin in southwestern France, particularly Bordeaux, based on the ownership inscription of Frater Renatus Faber Bourdelois; however, the presence of a second sixteenth-century inscription by Frère Jehan Mailhac, whose name points toward the region northwest of Narbonne, suggests a broader southern French context rather than a secure localization to Bordeaux.
 
The decoration belongs firmly within the traditions of southern French manuscript illumination. The historiated initials are characterized by strongly colored architectural settings, patterned grounds, and expressive figures framed by ornamental structures. A distinctive feature of several initials is the presence of paired columns or plinth-like forms flanking the figures, elements which in some examples support cusped arches but elsewhere remain as purely decorative motifs. The artist’s approach to ornament is notably idiosyncratic, with isolated burnished gold discs placed freely within backgrounds and along the descenders of initials, as seen in the present initial ‘P’ depicting Saint Paul at the opening of his Epistle to the Philippians. The manuscript also preserves unusual textual features that may eventually assist in establishing a more precise place of production. Most notably, at the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, verses Luke 1:1–4, commonly treated in medieval Bibles as a prefatory text but placed immediately before the Gospel proper, are here separated as an independent prologue, followed by a second prologue (Stegmüller no. 620) before the continuation of the Gospel at Luke 1:5. Such textual peculiarities, together with its distinctive illumination, mark the manuscript as an important witness to regional Bible production in southern France.  
 
Provenance
(1) Produced as the second volume of a two-volume Bible in southern France, where the manuscript apparently remained into the sixteenth century, as evidenced by the ownership inscriptions of two monks: Frère Jehan Mailhac (probably associated with Mailhac, near Narbonne) and Frater Renatus Faber Bourdelois (of Bordeaux).
 
(2) Subsequently, in Spain, probably from the collection of Juan de Iriarte (1702–1771), Carlos Antonio de Laserna de Santander (1752–1813), or the Marqués de Astorga.
 
(3) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792–1872), his MS 2506.
 
(4) Thomas FitzRoy Fenwick (1856–1938), by descent.
 
(5) Sir Alfred Chester Beatty (1875–1968) acquired 1920/21; his MS IX (later his MS. W.173)
exhibited at Trinity College Dublin in 1955.
 
(6) Sotheby’s, London, The Chester Beatty Sale, 24 June 1969, lot 57.
 
(7) Alan G. Thomas (1911–1992), offered in his Catalogue 23 (1969), no. 5.
 
(8) Philip C. Duschnes (1897–1970), who dismembered the manuscript and dispersed individual leaves from at least 1975 onward.
 
(9) Kenneth and Diana Rendell, 1982 catalogue, no. 6.
 
(10) Bruce P. Ferrini (1949–2010), Akron, OH inscribed in pencil with his stock number “VM 7959.”
 
(11) Les Enluminures, acquired February 1998.
 
(12) Robert McCarthy, London, MS BM 2465.
 
Parent manuscript and sister leaves
The present leaf comes from the second volume of a monumental two-volume Bible produced in southern France. At the time of its sale in 1969, the volume comprised 286 leaves and was described as preserving the standard thirteenth-century recension of the Bible, with Acts following the Pauline Epistles, complete except for eight or nine leaves from the Interpretations of Hebrew Names. According to the 1955 Chester Beatty exhibition catalogue, the Interpretations occupied the final twenty-four leaves. The manuscript was richly illuminated, containing a large Tree of Jesse introducing the Gospel of Matthew (f. 144v) and 107 additional illuminated initials, of which 76 were historiated, marking biblical books, prologues, and the Interpretations of Hebrew Names.
 
Known sister leaves preserving major historiated initials include: Dunedin, New Zealand, Reed Fragment 41, Martyrdom of Isaiah; Snite Museum of Art, University of Notre Dame, acc. 1975.57, Jeremiah Lamenting (Lamentations); leaves with Christ Addressing Joel, Jonah in the Fish, Micah Addressing Two Men, and Four Figures before God (II Maccabees); Snite Museum of Art, acc. 1975.43, the great Tree of Jesse opening Matthew; Gospel leaves depicting St Mark, Zacharias Kneeling before an Altar, and other figures; and numerous Pauline initials depicting St Paul with his sword and book, including openings for Romans, I and II Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians (the present leaf), Colossians, I and II Thessalonians, Timothy, and Titus. Further surviving leaves include the openings of the Canonical Epistles with St James, St Peter Holding the Keys (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, CBL W.173.3), St John, and Revelation with An Angel Instructing John as he Writes. Additional historiated initials survive from the Interpretations of Hebrew Names, including initials with young or beardless saints holding books. Approximately thirty leaves from the parent manuscript have been identified by Margaret Manion and others, with further additions recorded by David Gura. Non-historiated sister leaves are preserved in several collections, including the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin (CBL W.173.1–3), Occidental College, Eagle Rock, California, and private collections. Together, these fragments preserve evidence of one of the most ambitious southern French Bibles of the period, notable for its unusually extensive cycle of historiated initials and distinctive regional decorative style.
 
LITERATURE
Published: Thomas Phillipps, Catalogus Librorum Manuscriptorum in Bibliotheca D. Thomæ Phillipps, Bart., Middle Hill, 1837 (repr. with an introduction by A. N. L. Munby, London, 2001), no. 2506; Robert O. Dougan, A Loan Collection of Western Illuminated Manuscripts from the Library of Sir Chester Beatty, exhibition catalogue, Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, 1955, no. 9; Sotheby’s, Catalogue of Thirty-Eight Illuminated Manuscripts of the 9th to the 16th Century from the Celebrated Collection of the Late Sir Chester Beatty, London, 24 June 1969, lot 57; Alan G. Thomas, Catalogue 23: Fine Books, London, 1969, no. 5; Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, Vol. 3, French Miniatures, London, 2021, no. 61, pp. 203–211.
 
We are grateful to Peter Kidd for permission to quote from his catalogue for this entry, and we thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.
 
The Robert McCarthy Collection