Near miniature manuscript for the English market, blending International Gothic elegance with pre-Eyckian realism.

205 leaves, missing two opening Calendar leaves and one text leaf after f. 110, otherwise apparently complete, although additional tipped-in miniatures on singletons may once have been present [collation: i¹ (of 4, missing at least 2 text leaves), ii⁴, iii⁶, iv⁸⁺¹, v⁸, vi⁶, vii⁸, viii¹⁰, ix⁸, x⁸, xi¹², xii⁶, xiii¹²⁺¹, xiv¹¹, xv¹², xvi⁶, xvii⁴⁺¹, xviii⁴, xix⁸⁺¹, xx⁴, xxi¹⁰, xxii¹⁰⁺², xxiii², xxiv⁸⁺¹, xxv⁸, xxvi⁸, xxvii⁴ (of 8, with final 4 leaves cancelled or missing)], parchment, written in Gothic textura script in up to eleven lines (justification: 50 mm × 35 mm), ruled in light red, rubrics in red, some line-fillers in gold, blue, or red, numerous one-line initials alternating blue on red pen-flourished grounds and gold on light purple pen-flourished grounds, two-line initials in burnished gold on blue and pink grounds with white tracery, two-line initials in blue, pink, or red with white tracery on burnished gold grounds with extensions of painted and gold baguettes and painted and gold foliage sprays in the margins, five-line initials opening major textual divisions in pink, red, or blue with white tracery on burnished gold grounds enclosing painted and gold foliage, these leaves with full illuminated borders of descending painted and gold baguettes with similar painted and gold foliage, SEVEN MINIATURES tipped in on singletons with blank rectos. Bound in a fifteenth-century binding of green velvet over pasteboards, smooth spine, gilt and gauffered edges, joints splitting, velvet heavily worn, some internal smudging, a few leaves nibbled without loss of text (ff. 25–27), slightly cropped in the upper margin, some smudging to miniatures on ff. 164 and 177v, and slight smudging to f. 91v. Dimensions 88 mm × 64 mm.

Provenance
(1) Copied and illuminated in Flanders (probably Bruges) for the English market, the manuscript includes in its Calendar saints associated with English use, including George, Brendan, William, and Thomas Becket. Franciscan sympathies are also suggested by the Calendar and Litany, as well as by the unusual full-page miniature of Saint Anthony Abbot (f. 13v), a saint especially venerated by the Franciscans, placed opposite the opening of the Hours of the Virgin.

(2) Sixteenth-century English ownership is suggested by passages that were crossed out or effaced because of references to Catholic popes in the rubrics, reflecting the religious changes and anti-papal sentiment of the English Reformation.

(3) William S. Appleton (1840–1903) and others; his sale, Boston, 15 May 1906, lot 1491.

(4) G. H. Richmond; his sale, Anderson Auction Company, New York, 3 December 1907, lot 205.

(5) Haverhill, Massachusetts, The Public Library (100450), as listed in De Ricci, 1961, p. 1062, no. 2; deaccessioned 2012.

(6) Private European Collection.

Text
ff. 1–11, Calendar (incomplete, lacking January and part of February), with saints associated with English use including George, Brendan, William, and Thomas Becket, as well as mendicant saints Dominic, Clare, and Francis; ff. 11v–13, blank; ff. 14–90, Hours of the Virgin (Use of Rome); ff. 90v–91, blank; ff. 92–132v, Hours of the Sorrows of the Virgin Mary (a rare devotion preserved from Matins through Compline with loss between Prime and Terce); f. 133, blank; ff. 134–139, Short Hours of the Cross; ff. 139–145v, indulgenced prayers attributed to Pope Benedict XII and the Venerable Bede, with rubrics concerning papal authority and indulgences crossed out during the English Reformation; ff. 147–151v, Mass of the Three Kings; ff. 151v–160, Gospel extracts according to Matthew and John with the Creed and prayers; f. 160v, blank; ff. 161–162, devotional sequence; ff. 163 and 164v, blank; ff. 165–176v, Mass of the Annunciation, followed by Gospel extracts according to Luke and John, the Creed, and prayers; f. 177, blank; ff. 178–205v, Seven Penitential Psalms, followed by Litany and prayers.

Illumination
This delicate manuscript is a fine example of an “Anglo-Flemish Book of Hours,” one of a large group of Horae produced in Flanders for English patrons from the late fourteenth through early sixteenth centuries (see Colledge 1978; Rogers 1982, 2002). Produced in Bruges around 1410, the present manuscript belongs to the earliest generation of such books exported across the Channel. Although many Anglo-Flemish Horae were copied for the insular Uses of Sarum or York, others, like the present manuscript, employed the more universal Use of Rome. These manuscripts, produced both for specific patrons and for the open market, form an essential corpus for the study of pre-Eyckian Flemish illumination and the emergence of the naturalistic tendencies that would culminate in early Netherlandish painting (see Smeyers 1993, 1998).

The miniatures, painted on separate leaves and inserted ad modum Flandrie can be attributed to the Masters of the Beaufort Saints (or Beaufort Saints Group), a circle of illuminators active in Bruges during the first quarter of the fifteenth century. The group takes its name from the celebrated cycle of hagiographic miniatures in the Beaufort-Beauchamp Psalter-Hours (London, British Library, Royal MS 2 A XVIII), executed c. 1410–15 for Margaret Beauchamp of Bletsoe, wife of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset. Other manuscripts associated with the group include Rennes, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 22; Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Lat. liturg. f. 2; and the Knightly Psalter (Holkham Hall, MS 24). Closely connected with artists such as Herman Scheerre and later the Gold Scrolls Group, the Beaufort Saints illuminators were once thought to have worked in England, but are now generally understood as part of the flourishing Bruges industry producing luxury manuscripts for export. Their elegant figures, delicate modeling, and refined naturalism reveal strong connections with South Netherlandish painting, especially the art of Melchior Broederlam.

The present manuscript exemplifies the distinctive qualities of the Beaufort Saints style: luminous color, graceful figures with porcelain-like faces, expressive gestures, richly patterned interiors, and striking tiled floors. The gold ornament on black grounds, such as the backdrop of the Adoration of the Magi (f. 146v), compares closely with miniatures in the Beaufort-Beauchamp Hours, while the pink-and-white architectural canopies throughout the manuscript reveal connections with the contemporary Pink Canopies Group (for example, Cambridge, University Library, MS Ii.6.2, and London, British Library, Sloane MS 2683). Similarities with the Ushaw Group, named after the Sarum Hours at Ushaw College (MS 10, dated 1408), further demonstrate the close interaction among Bruges workshops at the turn of the fifteenth century. This refined Horae thus stands at the intersection of these artistic currents, preserving a rare glimpse into the collaborative and highly sophisticated world of early Flemish illumination for the English market.

The subjects of the seven full-page miniatures are: f. 13v, Saint Anthony Abbot with his attributes, the pig and bell; f. 91v, Christ as the Man of Sorrows with the Instruments of the Passion; f. 133v, Crucifixion; f. 146v, Adoration of the Magi; f. 163v, Annunciation: the Archangel Gabriel (diptych, part one); f. 164, Annunciation: the Virgin Mary (diptych, part two); f. 177v, Entombment of Christ.

LITERATURE
Unpublished; Related literature: Margaret Rickert, “The So-called Beaufort Hours,” The Burlington Magazine 104 (1962), pp. 238–46; Jonathan J. G. Alexander, Medieval and Early Renaissance Treasures of the North West, Manchester, 1976; Edmund Colledge, “South Netherlands Books of Hours Made for England,” Scriptorium 32 (1978), pp. 55–57; Maurits Smeyers, ed., Vlaamse miniaturen voor Van Eyck (c. 1380–c. 1420): Catalogus, Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts 6, Louvain,, 1993; Brigitte Cardon, “The Master of the Beaufort Saints,” in The Dictionary of Art (vol. 20), London, 1996, p. 624; Maurits Smeyers and Brigitte Cardon, eds., Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad, Louvain, 1995; Saskia Vertongen, “Herman Scheerre, the Beaufort Master and Flemish Miniature Painting: A Reopened Debate,” in Flanders in a European Perspective: Manuscript Illumination around 1400 in Flanders and Abroad, Maurits Smeyers and Brigitte Cardon, eds., Louvain, 1995; Maurits Smeyers, L’art de la miniature flamande du VIIIe au XVIe siècle, Tournai, 1998; Scot McKendrick, Flemish Illuminated Manuscripts 1400–1550, London, 2003; Nicholas J. Rogers, “Patrons and Purchasers: Evidence for the Original Owners of Books of Hours Produced in the Low Countries for the English Market,” in Als ich can: Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Maurits Smeyers, 2 vols., Brigitte Cardon, Jan Van der Stock, and Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, eds., Louvain, 2002, vol. II, pp. 1165–181; Janet Backhouse, “Patronage and Commemoration in the Beaufort Hours,” in Tributes to Lucy Freeman Sandler: Studies in Illuminated Manuscripts, Kathryn A. Smith and Carol H. Krinsky, eds., Turnhout, 2007, 331–44; Paul Binski and Patrick Zutshi, Western Illuminated Manuscripts: A Catalogue of the Collection in Cambridge University Library, Cambridge, 2011, no. 372; Scot McKendrick, John Lowden, and Kathleen Doyle, eds., Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination, London, 2011, no. 25, pp. 146–149; Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, “Une représentation inédite de saint Donatien et sa place au sein de l’enluminure dite ‘pré-eyckienne’,” in Le manuscrit enluminé: études réunies en hommage à Patricia Stirnemann, Claudia Rabel, ed., Paris, 2014, pp. 167–192.

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.