Manuscripts

The Olivetan Gradual: Its Place in 15th-century Lombard Manuscript Illumination

64 pages, paperback, 280 x 240 mm, 50 colour illustrations
PRICE: £15.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 879

This illuminated manuscript, a gradual of large size which the whole congregation of monks could see and read as they sang in choir (just as they are shown doing in an illustration in the manuscript itself), was previously unknown to scholars and has only recently come to light. It was clearly produced for a monastery of the Olivetan order, a branch of the Benedictines with a particular reverence for the Virgin Mary – probably Santa Maria di Baggio near Milan. Read more

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Amorous Delight: The Amarushataka Palm-Leaf Manuscript. Illustrated by the Master of Sharanakula in the 19th Century (Orissa, India)

Around 1800, an anonymous engraver in Sharanakula, a small temple place on the southern coast of Orissa, illustrated a palm-leaf anthology of love poems. The one hundred Sanskrit quatrains, which are said to be the work of the 7th-century poet Amaru, describe the behaviour of enamoured couples, their longing for each other, the lovers’ anxieties, their ecstatic joy as well as their doubts and sorrows. More

Chinese Books

This catalogue discusses and illustrates a wide variety of Chinese books, dating from the sixth to the nineteenth century -- some very rare. More

Islamic Manuscripts

The selection consists of Qur’ans, illustrated Islamic manuscripts and scientific and religious manuscripts. All are handsomely illustrated and fully discussed. The manuscripts are from all parts of the Islamic world and represent the finest achievements of the form. More

Andre Beauneveu: "No Equal in any Land", Artist to the Courts in France and Flanders

This catalogue accompanies an exhibition at the Groeninge Museum, Bruges, which celebrates one of the greatest European artists of the late fourteenth century, André Beauneveu, apparently born in Valenciennes c. 1335. The full scope of his talent was exploited by the celebrated royal patron Jean de Berry, for whom he produced manuscript illuminations, made designs for stained glass and oversaw the construction of his château at Mehun-sur-Yevre. However, it is primarily his very great skill in the handling of stone which gives Beauneveu such particular significance in the history of late medieval art. More

Art of the Middle Ages

This is the catalogue to an outstanding collection of Medieval art from a private collection. Ranging from paintings and sculpture to stained glass, manuscripts and caskets, many of the objects presented here are of absolute rarity, some are previously unpublished and - until recently - unknown. More

The Chaworth Roll

According to the Chaworth Roll, Egbert was ‘the first king of all England’, reigning 829–39. The Chaworth genealogical Roll of the kings of England was made in the 1320s for the Chaworth family, then it was brought up to date as far as Henry IV (1399–1413) and remained with Chaworth descendants until very recently. More

Geometry in Gold: An Illuminated Mamlk Qu'ran Section

This book is devoted to a monumental and superbly illuminated very large early fourteenth-century Mamluk Qur’an in muhaqqaq script. It constitutes the final part (Juz’ 30) of a superb two-volume Qur’an of which the first volume is preserved in the National Museum in Damascus while the second volume, from which the present section originates, is widely dispersed. More

Manuscripts of the Silk Road

For more than a thousand years, the paths of the Silk Road joined the distant empires of East Asia and the Mediterranean, forming a complex web of trade, pilgrimage and intellectual exchange between China, Central Asia, Persia, Tibet, India, the Near East and Europe. The manuscripts collected in this book provide a sense of the fruitful exchanges as well as bitter struggles in these regions over the centuries. More

Picturing Piety: The Book of Hours

This catalogue of Books of Hours, the 'best seller' of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance, presents two dozen Books of Hours mostly dating from the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Examples from France, the Netherlands, and Belgium are presented chronologically with illustrations in colour for each entry. More

The Eckstein Shahnama: An Ottoman Book of Kings

The great Persian poet Firdausi’s epic Shahnama, or ‘Books of Kings’, written at the turn of the eleventh century CE, is a seamless tapestry of historical and legendary material prominently featuring battles and individual struggles with fierce demons and enemy champions. The first known illustrations of the poem date to the early fourteenth century. More