Hours of Marie de' Medici

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Accession number:

MS M.1255

Title:

Hours of Marie de' Medici (MS M.1255).

Created:

France, Blois, ca. 1540

Binding:

18th-century russia gilt, in red morocco box by Riviere.

Credit:

Gift of Mary Ann Kraus Folter in memory of Roland Folter on the occasion of the Morgan's Centennial, 2025.

Description:

3 flyleaves, 62 folios, 3 flyleaves, bound : vellum, illuminated ; 133 x 92 (85 x 58) mm

Provenance:

Probably Swiss-born physician and botanist Matthieu Reneaulme, who lived in Blois ca. 1530 (his MR monogram and motto, Me manet salus vera) and known for his skill at canivet; probably inherited by his son Paul I Reneaulme; probably inherited by his son Paul II Reneaulme (1560-1624), botanist and physician to Henri II de Bourbon, prince of Condé; probably given by him to Marie de' Medici, queen of France (1573-1642), during her exile in Blois in 1617-1619 (her monogram MM); London, Quaritch, Illuminated Manuscripts, 1931, no. 52 (untraced); London, Quaritch, Catalogue 500, 1935, no, 246, illus.; bought by Countess Estelle Doheny (1875-1958) from Quartitch in 1939 (her bookplate); her sale, part II, London, Christie's, 2 December 1987, lot 179; H.P. Kraus, Catalogue 188, 1991, no. 27, and Catalogue 220, n.d., no. 138; bought by Mary Ann Folter in 2003.

Notes:

The distinctive feature of this codex are the nearly forty leaves the borders of which are cut, in a technique called canivet, into intricate lace-like patterns. These canivet borders are attributed to Matthieu Reneaulme.
With early seventeenth-century additions.
Contents: Calendar (fols. 1-6v), Our Father (7), Apostles' Creed (7v), Hours of the Virgin (8-39v), Commemoration of the Cross and Holy Spirit (40-42v), Penitential Psalms and Litany (43-48v), Office of the Dead (49-61v).
Decoration: 15 large miniatures and numerous small images and historiated borders.
List of illustrations: Annunciation (fol. 8), Visitation (18v), Nativity (24v), Annunciation to the Shepherds (27), Adoration of the Magi (29), Presentation in the Temple (31), Flight into Egypt (33), Assumption of the Virgin (37), Crucifixion (40), Pentecost (42), David in Penance (43), Corpse Mourned (49), Last Judgment (52v), Arms of Death Flanked by a Man and a Woman (57), and Armorial Device (61v).
A similar canivet Book of Hours, also once owned by Marie de' Medici, is in Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W.494.

Script:

Italic cursive hand

Language:

Latin

Catalog Link:

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Classification:

Manuscript

Department:

Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts