Upholland Hours : Amiens c.1430-40 : CHD : Dismembered Manuscripts

Dismembered Manuscripts
Book of Hours (Upholland Hours) Amiens c.1430-40
Heures à l'usage d'Amiens c.1440


Adoration of the Magi (Ad Sextam) Upholland Hours f.69v Photo: © Gregory T. Clark (with kind permission)	Funeral Service before an Alter (Office of the Dead) Upholland Hours f.135 - Script and rubrics in a hand identical with the scribe of the Amiens Hours Photo: © Gregory T. Clark (with kind permission)

'Upholland Hours' (Amiens c.1430-1440) Latin and French
Vellum 197 ff. 172 x 120 mm. 12 lines, textura (95 x 58 mm)
Collation: 1-iii⁸, iv¹⁰, v-vi⁶, vii¹⁰, viii^8-1, ix^10-1, x¹⁰, xi⁸, xii⁴, xiii⁸⁺¹ +f.97, xiv⁸, xv^8-1, xvi⁸, xvii⁸, xviii¹⁰, xix-xxi⁸, xxii⁸⁺¹ +f.171, xxiii⁸. xxiv⁸, xxv⁴; (lacking leaves after f.56, 63 and 111, other miniatures inserted on single leaves could be wanting).
Provenance: Made in Amiens for a couple whose unidentified arms are painted in the lower border on f.25;
Olim: Wigan [Lancashire] Upholland College Library Ms.99; Sold Christie's 2 Dec. 1987 lot 33 ; Sold Sotheby's 29 Nov. 1990 lot 137; Sold again Sotheby's 5 Dec. 1994 lot 94; (2002 broken up, and dispersed by Griffon Medieval Manuscripts. Single leaves with text are likely to appear on the market, but has not yet been sold in large numbers)

Contents

Calendar f.1-12 (Full composite calendar in French, without painted borders)
Gospel Sequences f.13-20 (Miniature missing?)
Verses of St. Bernard f.21
Memorie Sanctorum f.22v-24
Hours of the Virgin (use of Amiens)
1. Matins f.25 *Annunciation
2. Lauds f.41 *Visitation
3. Prime f.57 (Miniature missing)
4. Terce f.64 (Miniature missing)
5. Sext f.69v *Adoration of the Magi
6. None f.74 *Presentation in the temple
7. Vespers f.79v *Flight into Egypt
8. Compline f.89v *Coronation of the Virgin
9. Salve Regina f.96
Hours of the Holy Spirit f.98 *Pentecost¹
Hours of the Cross f.102 (Miniature missing)
Le pseaume de le foy [Quicumque vult] f.106
Penitential Psalms and Litany f.112 (Miniature missing)
Office of the Dead (use of Amiens, 3 lessons) f.135 *Funeral Service
Les quinze joyes f.163 (Miniature missing)
Les sept requestes f.171v *The Last Judgment
Suffragia Sanctorum f.177v
Obsecro te & O intemerata f.186
Prayers for Mass (with indulgence) f.195v

Note: 1) Gregory Clark found by coincidence and the curious irony of fate the Pentecost miniature he photographed many years ago recently hanging on the wall in his own home town:
"I also know where the Upholland Pentecost now is: it hangs in the Lady Chapel in the Church of the Apostles at the School of Theology here in Sewanee (!)"

Bibl.:
J.J.G.Alexander: Medieval and Early Renaissance Treasures in the North West, Manchester 1976, p.24, no.30;
Sotheby's: Western Manuscripts and Miniatures, London, Thursday 29th November 1990, lot 137, p.240-242 (Ill.)
Susie Nash: Between France and Flanders. Manuscript Illumination in Amiens in the Fifteenth Century. The British Library and University of Toronto Press, 1999, Cat. no. 19, p.329-332;
Gregory T. Clark: "Made in Flanders" and the Master of the Ghent Priviliges : A first Coda. in: ALS ICH CAN, Liber Amicorum in Memory of Professor Dr. Mauritz Smeyers, Uitgeverij Peeters, Leuven 2002, p.383-399 (Ill.9).