Introduction

Hello, my name is Matt and I enjoy collecting illuminated manuscripts and early printed books.  I often post my collection online through Instagram and Twitter, which is most likely how you found this space.  I'm creating this blog as a means to dive deeper into the history and provenance of my individual pieces, not just to share with everyone else, but also to keep the documentation online rather than just trapped away on my hard drive.


If you have questions, or would like to reach out to me, please email me at:
xchimx [at] gmail

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Book of Hours, Use of Chartres ca. 1487

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I have been meaning to digitize this manuscript from my collection for some time, and finally got to it today.  It is a Book of Hours from Chartres France, and made around 1487 .  There are three surviving miniatures, all in varying degrees of degradation, while numerous others have been snipped out by a previous owner.  Usage The localization is based on a few factors: the calendar, the late Erik Drigsdahl's CHD index, as well as an inscription at the end of the MS that has been partially transcribed. The Calendar has numerous Saints specific to worship in and around Chartres: May 28: Saint Caranus of Chartres September 14: Saint Lubin of Chartres November 17: Saint Aignan of Orleans Illumination The three surivivng miniatures are all of a poor state of preservation.  They include The Visitiation, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, and King David in Prayer There are some similarities to other surviving Books of Hours from Chartres.   Les Enluminures r...
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Anonymous Lombard Illuminator of around 1310-1320

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Edit: thanks to Dr Milvia Bollati for providing the Initial S from the former Longari collection below and confirming the attribution of my initials. In 2024 I purchased two clippings from a small auction house in Brooklyn.  They had been crudely pasted together by a previous owner, with faux gold leaf covering the seam in parts.  There appeared to be loss of paint, primarily to the flesh tones of the faces and arms, but the over all quality seemed quite nice despite that and I decided to go for them. After purchasing, I discovered that these two initial I's were from a known set of clippings held at numerous institutions and private collections.  A 2015 auction at Koller in Zurich , with notes to Lot 158 written by Gaudenz Freuler provided the greatest amount of help.  16 initials were known at the time of the Koller sale.  The two I's my brooklyn purchase increases the total to 18. Digital Photos Available (see below): Initial I - Jesus fasting in the de...
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Initial I for a Martyred Saint - Master of the Montepulciano Gradual

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Recently, this clipping of a Saint being martyred failed to sell at an auction in Germany.  I was able to obtain it in a post-sale offer. As luck would have it, I reached out to Dr. Bryan Keene to ask their opinion of it and to my surprise, Bryan had previously written about the artist while working as an associate curator at the Getty Museum in LA and was even familiar with the leaf in question. A blog post on the Getty's website does a better job of explainig the history of this artist than I can, but for a TL;DR version, the artist has historically been associated with the Master of the Antiphonary of San Giovanni Fuorcivitas but many recent scholars including Keene believe it is by a different hand and have began naming the artist Master of the Montepulciano Gradual. Below is a list of sister clippings taken from the Getty post, followed by images of the different clippings I have managed to track down.  One thing I find interesting about the grouping is the distinct bord...
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