Four leaves from Books of Hours, in Latin or French, illuminated manuscripts

Four leaves from Books of Hours, in Latin or French, illuminated manuscripts on vellum, [France, fifteenth century], four single leaves, comprising: (a) single leaf with text in 24 lines, red rubrics, one- and 2-line initials in gold (the larger on coloured grounds), this perhaps once the initial leaf of a volume and with “Page 1” and “Page 2” added in a nineteenth-century hand, a faded paper label attached with the year “1856” still legible and a clipping from an auction house catalogue also attached (for a lot 538, and almost certainly describing the parent volume, this apparently Sotheby’s but not traceable by us), 195 x 140mm.; (b) single leaf with text in 18 lines of lettre bâtarde, capitals touched in yellow wash, bright blue rubrics, one 2-line initial in blue on black grounds with foliage picked out in liquid gold brushstrokes, each side with a decorated border panel of coloured and gold acanthus leaves and other foliage on gold or blank vellum grounds, 170 x 113mm.; (c) leaf from a Litany of Saints evidently from north-eastern France (with entries for SS. Arnulphus of Metz and Taurinus of Évreux), with entries in 19 lines, one-line initials on every line in gold on blue and pink grounds, line-fillers in same, 165 by 105mm.; (d) single leaf with text in 22 lines, red rubrics, one-line initials in gold on burgundy and blue grounds, 2-line initials in white scrolls on gold grounds (2 of these enclosing a fly and a butterfly), each page with decorated border panel of acanthus leaves and more realistic coloured foliage terminating in gold and coloured seedpods, 115 x 85mm.; all with small spots and stains, else good conditio

Estimate:£800

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