The Philadelphia Museum of Art

A “Spectacular” Discovery: imprints of eyeglasses and their specific context in a Book of Hours

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 14/52

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A volume with a rust stain from eyeglasses, presented with an actual pair of eyeglasses in front of it (exhibited in Le verre, un moyen-âge inventif, Musée National du Moyen-Âge-Thermes de Cluny, 20 September 2019 – 8 January 2018); Book of Hours for the Use of Rome, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1945‑65‑14, fols. 106v–107r (eyeglass imprints in the gutter)

The recent exhibition on glass in the Middle Ages (Le verre, un moyen-âge inventif, at the Musée National du Moyen-Âge-Thermes de Cluny) exhibited a famous rust-stain in an incunable caused by a pair of eyeglasses long forgotten inside the closed book.  The differential condensation of the metal frames around the lenses caused traces of oxidation to transfer to the paper surface over time. Presented evocatively in front of the book in the exhibition was an actual pair of late-medieval eyeglasses, excavated archeologically in a different context. Unsurprisingly, the original pair of eyeglasses responsible for the stain is long gone. And, in any case, since the incunable is a rather dry theological volume with few annotations, and the eyeglasses were left in for years, or possibly even decades or centuries, this is clearly the product of one-time forgetfulness. After all, how many items have we forgotten in our own books over the years? 

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Traces of use (and a Pilgrim’s badge!) in a well-traveled Book of Hours

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 12/52

  
Book of Hours, Use of Rome, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, 1945‑65‑11, beginnings and miniatures for suffrages to Saint John the Evangelist and Saint Anthony Abbot, pp. 277 and 279

Last week, we looked at the fanfare-style binding of a dainty yet otherwise apparently relatively unremarkable Book of Hours produced in France in the mid-fifteenth century. Yet the book’s pages actually contains a whole variety of additional clues as to its early use. These seemingly small traces showcase several of the kinds of early ownership information we can sometimes extract when we look closely at a Books of Hours. Amazingly, all of this evidence existed within the book before it was given its current, eye-catchingly tooled binding at the end of the sixteenth century. 

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A “fanfare” for a musical printeress in late-sixteenth-century Paris

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 11/52

  
Book of Hours, Use of Rome, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Department of Prints, Drawings, and Photographs, 1945‑65‑11, upper and lover covers (with “LUCRECE DU GUE” inscription)

A small mid-fifteenth-century Book of Hours now in the collections of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, PMA 1945-65-11, is housed in a beautifully preserved gilt-tooled à la fanfare binding that can be dated stylistically to the end of the sixteenth century. These distinctive and highly prized bindings are most closely associated with bookbinders working in Paris between about 1570 and 1630, and are identifiable by their geometrical “strapwork” designs, which are usually comprised of ribbons that feature a single gilt line on one side, and a double line on the other.1 The way that this design cue creates the illusion of relief on the surface of the cover is especially evident here. 

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“Love and Humility are the sweet bonds of our marriage:” A Book of Hours owned by the wife of a French Catholic propagandist of the 16th century, and the Governor of Pennsylvania!

Fifty-two discoveries from the BiblioPhilly project, No. 7/52


Book of Hours, Use of Paris, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1924‑19‑1, fol. 24r (miniature of the Annunciation from the Hours of the Virgin)

Books of Hours are highly mobile objects that can often accrue fascinating later histories. Because of their deeply personal nature, they can become associated with historical persons either through legend or fact (or a combination of the two). Only relatively rarely, however, does one later owner purchase a book on account of its earlier ownership history. One such example is a fairly modest Parisian Book of Hours acquired by the Philadelphia Museum of Art in 1924 (accession number 1924‑19‑1). Unlike the later ensembles of illuminated manuscripts donated to the museum by Samuel and Vera White or Philip S. Collins, this manuscript was not published or described upon its entry into the collection.1 Its only existing description comes from Seymour de Ricci’s Census of Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the United States and Canada and its later Supplement, produced by C.U. Faye and W.H. Bond. 

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