FROM A BOOK OF HOURS IN LATIN

Poitiers, ca. 1470. 157 x 107 mm. (6 1/4 x 4 1/4"). Single column, 14 lines, in a neat, regular gothic book hand.
Rubrics in red, with several one-line initials and one two-line initial in brushed gold on red or blue squares, WITH A VERY PLEASING PANEL BORDER ON EACH SIDE, featuring blue and gold acanthus leaves and flowers, and WITH A COLORFUL HYBRID MONK IN RECTO BORDER, AND A GROTESQUE IN VERSO BORDER. ◆Vellum slightly yellowed and a touch wrinkled in margins, but IN FINE CONDITION OVERALL.

This leaf contains two immensely charming creatures in the borders: on the recto, the torso of a monk in flamboyant pink robes and a green hood holds an open book and what appears to be a small scourge, while his lower body consists of the hindquarters of a hairy animal; the verso features an oddly shaped beast with a long snout, tail, and two hind legs. The parent manuscript from where this leaf originates must have been produced in Poitiers, given the appearance in red in its calendar of Hilary and Radegund, saints of special interest in that locale. The artist here has affinities with the leading painter in Poitiers, the so-called Master of Adélaide of Savoie, at work in that city from about 1450 to 1480, and also with one of the leading masters of the century, Jean Fouquet..