Small cutting of French verse, reused as a frisket in sixteenth century, manuscript on parchment [France, thirteenth century]

Small cutting of French verse, reused as a frisket in sixteenth century, manuscript on parchment [France, thirteenth century]

Rectangular cutting, with remnants of 7 lines from a single column (suggesting this was once a double column manuscript, that here too slight to allow easy identification, but including the phrases la place de la cite and je veul dist il q[ue] [com]mander), the script on the front just visible in normal light, that on reverse visible only in UV light, that overlaid with red ink on front marking out shapes of imprinted letters in reverse, small strip cut from upper part (for red script to be printed through during secondary use as frisket), scuffs, cuts, overall fair condition, 35 by 95mm.

Friskets sections of medieval manuscript leaves reused in early printing to mask off the print face from all but the rubrics to be printed in red were until quite recently thought to be rare. Following the research of Elizabeth Upper ('Red Frisket Sheets, c.1490 - 1630', Papers of the Bibliographical Society of America, 108:4 (2014) , who lists 21 in total; see also her online extension of this which extends this total to 59) and our sale of one, 8 July 2015, lot 27, private collectors recognised them in their own collections and a handful more have been brought to light (see our catalogue, 6 July 2016, lot 42, for further references, as well as a large example now in the University of South Carolina and another offered in Bassenge, 16 April 2019, lot 807).