Ɵ Lectern Bible, in Latin, manuscript on parchment [southern Flanders (perhaps Tournai), c. 1275]

Ɵ Two leaves from a monumental Lectern Bible, with Leviticus 25:40-26:26 and Deuteronomy 12:31-14:19, in Latin, from a vast decorated manuscript on parchment[southern Flanders (perhaps Tournai), c. 1275] Two leaves (text not continuous), with double column of 33 lines in a large, formal gothic book script of highest grade (littera gothica textualis formata), initials in red and blue with penwork flourishes the entire height of the text and margins, slight cockling and discolouration at edges and corners, slight flaking from ink of a few letters on one page, else in good and bright condition, 510 by 37mm.; in cloth-covered binding Provenance: 1. From volume one of a grand four volume Bible, probably from the medieval library of St. Martin's, Tournai, with volumes II and III probably Brussels, Bibliothèque royale, MS II.2523, and volume IV may be Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, MS Ludwig I.9. The presence of punctus flexus punctuation might be taken to indicate production for Cistercian use, and the parent volume of these leaves was owned by one "Frater Stephanus Blanchet" in the sixteenth century (see the leaf with his ex libris in Quaritch cat. 1036, Bookhands of the Middle Ages, 1984, no. 75). The Brussels volumes once belonged to Sir Thomas Phillipps, who bought them in the 1820s among the residue of the library of St. Martin's, Tournai, noting that before he could obtain it, volume I had been sold and "destroyed by a Bookseller at Brussels". 2. Erik von Scherling (1907-1956) of Leiden (see lot 6); who owned a part of the broken volume I (from Leviticus 3 to Judges 24) in 1954 (offered Rotulus VII, no. 2474, illustrated as frontispiece there).3. Broken by the Folio Society between 1963 and 1965 and widely dispersed, with leaves appearing in their cats. 13 (1963), no.130, 16 (1963), no. 128, 23 (1964), no. 26, 27 (1965), nos. 125a+b, 33 (1965), no. 111; as well as Sotheby's, 25 April 1983, lot 84. A single leaf is also New Zealand, Dunedin Public Library, Reed Collection, frag. 11 (M.M. Manion, V.F. Vines and C. de Hamel, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in New Zealand Collections, no. 74, and our catalogue for 4 December 2018, lot 16 for updates to provenance), and others have since appeared in our rooms, 4 December 2018, lot 16.4a. The first leaf here passed to the palaeographer, E.A. Lowe, where it hung framed in his study at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, from there it passed to Bernard Rosenthal (1920-2017), of San Francisco, California, his I/22, acquired in 1972; and from there to Quaritch cat. 1088, Bookhands of the Middle Ages III, 1988, no. 71, from whence it was acquired for the Schøyen Collection as MS 82.4b. The second leaf re-emerged in Swann Galleries, New York, Auction 1525, 22 March 1990, lot 123, and was also acquired for the Schøyen Collection and reunited with MS 82. Script:A fine example of the grand decorative script of the thirteenth century primarily used for de luxe Biblical and liturgical codices, showing the angularity and lateral compression of letter forms common to the Gothic, but with a wide range of decorative flourishes included for decorative effect.