BOOK OF HOURS

178 by 120mm., 123 leaves (plus 1 paper and 2 vellum endleaves at front and back), uncollatable but with probably only two single leaves wanting (those once with the miniatures opening Lauds and Terce in the Hours of the Virgin), some miniatures bound in on singletons, single column, 20 lines in an angular late gothic bookhand, red rubrics, small initials in liquid gold on spiky blue or pink grounds heightened with white penwork, larger initials in burnished gold on pink and blue grounds, often with sprays of tri-lobed flowers touched in pink or blue, or pink or blue enclosing foliate sprays and on brightly burnished gold grounds, seven historiated initials (in the Suffrages for the Saints), nine full-page rectangular miniatures with full borders of acanthus leaves, single line foliage and flowers set on blank vellum with numerous bezants, some small scuffs and spots, but overall in good condition, bound in eighteenth-century calf over pasteboards, gilt-tooled with two concentric frames (the inner with floral sprays at corners) on each board, spine similarly tooled with floral compartments, gilt-edge and gauffered, joints cracked, but sound, preserved in slipcase.