ROUSE MS 32
BOOK OF HOURS. 60 FOLIOS. MASTER OF THE BRUSSELS INITIALS,
ITALY, CA. S. XIV EX.
| | MS 32 open to the beginning of the Office of the Cross. The same
gold initials with blue pen-scrolls can be seen in a Missal illuminated
by the Master of the Brussels Initials, now
Getty MS 34.
 |
Sixty leaves from the text portions of a once magnificent Book of
Hours commissioned in northern Italy probably for a Carthusian Priory
ca. 1400, which was painted by the Master of the Brussels Initials.
Of the 60 leaves, 56 have been scrubbed, sparing the initials and
the rubrics; the text on these leaves survives to varying degrees.
Most of the pages illuminated by the Master of the Brussels Initials
have been acquired by the British Library, as they have come on
the market since World War II. The leaves of Rouse MS 32 are important
because the rubrics, texts, and offsets they preserve are a vital
key to reconstructing the original contents of the manuscript.
Parchment (Italian preparation), 60ff., 240 x 174 (122 x 94) mm. Quires
of 8 leaves, the Rouse leaves primarily from quires VIII-XVII; leaf
signatures; catchwords. 22 long lines ruled in hard point. Written
by one person in a round Italian littera textualis.
Gold initials with elaborate circular pen decoration in blue ink,
for which this artist is named. l illuminated initial with acanthus
leaves and gold bezants at quire X (folio R59), the opening of the
Short Hours of the Cross, Matins, depicting a cross. One-line initials
alternating in red and blue; occasional offsets from illuminated pages.
The manuscript belonged in the 1930s to Stanley Bray, nephew of
George Sutcliffe of Sangorski & Sutcliffe, one of the great London
binderies. It apparently survived largely intact until 1939 when
it was taken apart. The British Museum, now British Library, has
managed to acquire though various purchases and gifts 27 folios
of the manuscript including major full page illuminations. At some
stage the text on individual leaves was scrubbed off, perhaps in
order to reuse the parchment in binding. The initials survived as
did the rubrics and offsets from the miniatures. Two additional
illuminated leaves are known to survive but much of the original
manuscript has vanished. Another manuscript in Los Angeles illuminated
by the Master of the Brussels Initials is the Missal in
Getty MS 34 produced for the Bishop of Bologna, and future Pope
Innocent VII.
Sometime before his death in December 24 1996 the leaves were given
or sold by Bray to his friend, the bookseller Frederick Sims, from
whom they were acquired by the London bookseller Alan Thomas (d. 1992).
Acquired from Patrick Bruno, who had them on consignment from Alan
Thomas, in February 1989. R.H. & M.A. Rouse MS 32
|