The Estate of a Larchmont, New York Collector

[PSALTER]

Illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum. Northwestern Germany (diocese of Cologne), late thirteenth century. Sixteenth-century calf over wooden boards, blind-tooled with a roll with heads in profile captioned DVR and HEI, all edges stained green, 4 1/2 x 3 3/8 inches (11.5 x 8.5 cm). Housed in a custom gray cloth box. 270 leaves with modern foliation in pencil, collating i¹³ [quire of 12 with a singleton added at the end] ii-xx¹² xxi¹⁰ [-10, cancelled blank after f. 250] xxii-xxiii⁸ xxiv⁴; leaves with 17 lines in a gothic textualis bookhand. One 7-line illuminated Beatus initial depicting David with his harp opens the Psalms; many more 2- to 6-line initials in red, blue, and laid gold. Chants in a fourteenth-century hand and Hufnagelschrift musical notation have been added to the margins in approximately thirty places. Binding worn, with original clasps missing, joints cracked, some chips to the head and tail of the spine, hinges slightly loose but holding. Internally thumbsoiled, with some flaking to pigments and gold of the initials, a short marginal tear to leaf 173. The bookbinder's plough has trimmed the textblock closely at points, with some loss to marginal notes. An early reader has rubbed away the name of St. Vincent from the litany on leaf 228.

A charming psalter made for members of the Premonstratensian order in the diocese of Cologne. The Office of the Dead is of Premonstratensian use, and the calendar includes Cologne feasts including Pantaleon (July 28), Gereon (October 10) and Cunibert (November 12). The use of both masculine and feminine forms in the prayers indicates that it may have been created for a double monastery of canons and nuns in the thirteenth century. The DVR-HEI stamp on the binding is a near match for Einbanddatenbank tool r002676 from the workshop of Philipp Hoffott in Straßburg, suggesting that the volume may have traveled by the sixteenth century, but variations on this tool seem to have been common across Germany during the period. The Psalter bears seventeenth-century ownership inscriptions by two women, demonstrating its ongoing status as a treasured object and as a tool of devotion. The volume also has a distinguished modern provenance: Leander van Ess, an important collector who spent years gathering manuscripts from suppressed religious houses across Germany, owned this volume in the nineteenth century. Sir Thomas Phillipps, the great English bibliophile, purchased the entire collection of Professor Van Ess.

Provenance: (1) The feasts in the calendar suggest that the Psalter was made for a religious house in Cologne. (2) Margarita Geissin; ownership inscription in a 17th-century German hand, noting that the manuscript was given to her by ‘Jungfer girdffries sinivin’ on f.268. (3) Anna Elisabet von Hahfelt; multiple ownership inscriptions in a 17th-century German hand (ff.250v, 255v, 256v, 261v, 264v, 265v). (4) Leander van Ess (1772-1847; theologian, former monk of Marienmünster in Paderborn); his ownership inscription on f.1. Bought with the van Ess library in 1824 by (5) Sir Thomas Phillipps (1792-1872); his manuscript number 494. Bought at his sale, Sotheby’s, 23 May 1913, lot 1019 by (6) Sidney Young, F.S.A.; his sale, Sotheby’s, 20 July 1921, lot 929 (bought by ‘Tyler’). (7) Robert N. Green-Armytage (d.1966; English lawyer); his book label, inner upper cover. (8) Sotheby’s, 8 July 1957, lot 70. (9) Sotheby’s, 1 December 1998, lot 74. (10) Christie's, 12 December 2018, lot 12.