Egmont breviary

Accession number: 
MS M.87
Title: 
Egmont breviary
Created: 
Utrecht, Netherlands, ca. 1440.
Binding: 
18th-century (?) red velvet over boards.
Credit: 
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1902.
Description: 
436 leaves (2 columns, 36 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 242 x 165 mm
Provenance: 
Made for a Duke of Guelders-Jülich, probably Arnold van Egmont, husband of Catherine of Cleves, shown kneeling before St. Nicholas on fol. 324 (coat of arms on fol. 427: per pale azure a lion crowned or (= Gueldres), confronting or a lion sable (= Juliers)); before 1559 George van Egmont, bishop of Utrecht (d. 1559); bought (May 7, 1720) by James West; his sale (London, Mar. 29, 1773, no. 1883) to Evans; bought (Nov. 27, 1800) by Rev. D.T. Powell; his sale (London, July 31, 1848, no. 479) to Bertram, the Earl of Ashburnham (appendix, no. 42); Catalogue of manuscripts and early printed books from the libraries of William Morris, Richard Bennett, Bertram, fourth Earl of Ashburnham, and other sources, no. 14; Ashburnham's sale (London, May 14, 1902, no. 6) to Quaritch; purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1902; J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).
Notes: 

Ms. breviary for Carthusian use; written and illuminated in Utrecht, the Netherlands, ca. 1440.
Decoration: 1 frontispiece, 67 large miniatures, 40 small miniatures, 138 historiated initials.
Artists: Masters of Otto van Moerdrecht, Masters of Zweder van Culemborg.
Two leaves once belonging to this manuscript were sold at Sotheby's, Feb. 2, 1960, cat. nos. 246, 247; no. 246 purchased by Utrecht, University Library and now MS 12.C.17; no. 247 purchased through Quaritch and now at Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Ms 1-1960; a third leaf is in London, British Library, MS Add. 30,339, no. 3.

Script: 
littera textualis formata
Language: 
Latin
Century: 
Classification: