Gospel book

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Accession number: 
MS M.1108
Title: 
Gospel book
Created: 
Tokat, Turkey, 1700.
Binding: 
Original traditional Armenian leather binding, with fore-edge flap, blind -tooled with a variety of different stamps, divided into 2 compartments, over boards; silver repoussé and blue, green, and yellow enameled placques nailed to covers, made in a Kayseri silversmith workshop, ca. 1700.
Credit: 
Purchased on the L.W. Frohlich Charitable Trust, in memory of L.W. Frohlich and Thomas R. Burns, in recognition of their interest and contributions to the art of the written word, 1998.
Description: 
256 leaves (2 columns, 21 lines), bound : paper, ill. ; 270 x 202 mm
Provenance: 
Copied in 1700 by Georg, son of Mikʻayel under the protection of the Church of Saint Sargis of Bazarcax, in Tokat (colophon on fols. 253-256) for the female patron Hripʻsime, who had the manuscript executed in memory of her parents; Church of Saint Georg in Ewdokioy (note in ink on fol. 1); Sam Fogg, London; purchased through funds specifically provided for its purchase by the L.W. Frohlich Charitable Trust, in memory of L.W. Frohlich and Thomas R. Burns, in recognition of their interest and contributions to the art of the written word, in 1998.
Notes: 

Ms. gospel book; written and illuminated in Tokat, Turkey, in 1700.
Decoration: 4 full-page Evangelist portraits, 4 illuminated incipit pages, 10 elaborately decorated canon tables, three text-referent marginal drawings (crowing cock on fols. 78v and 245, referring to St. Peter; the decapitated head of John the Baptist on fol. 99), numerous floral, geometrical and avian initials and marginal motifs throughout the manuscript.
Scribe: Georg (Mikʻayel's son) (colophon on fols. 253-256 gives date of completion as Saturday, 23 March, 1700, Feast of the Resurection of Lazarus; additional colophon on fol. 201v).
Textiles: inner covers lined with blue cloth; braided ribbon page markers; typical colorful braided Armenian end bands.

Script: 
bolorgir
Language: 
Armenian
Classification: