The Butler Hours
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made middle of 14th century
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 20 x 14,5 cm
Inventory numberNMB 1726
AcqusitionPurchase 1958 funded by Hjalmar and Anna Wicanders fund
Other titlesTitle (en): The Butler Hours Inventory title (sv): Initial H med bröstbild av Kristus Alternative title: Horae
DescriptionDescription: NMB 1726-1727 Two leaves from the Butler Hours. [England, c.1350] Catalogue raisonné: NMB 1726-1727 Two leaves from the Butler Hours. [England, c.1350] Physical Description MATERIAL: Gouache and gold on parchment. DIMENSIONS: 200 × 145 mm. NUMBER OF LEAVES: 2. FOLIATION: 78/86 RULING: 11 lines ruled in faint red ink. LANGUAGE: Latin. SCRIPT: Gothic minuscule. RUBRICATION: Rubrics in blue and gold. Text NMB 1726 Oremus: Gratiam tuam, quaesumus. Hymnus: Hora completorii datur sepulturae. Commendatio: Has horas canonicas cum devotione. NMB 1727 Benedicamus Domino. Gloria Patri, et Filio: et Spiritui sancto. Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper: et in saecula saeculorum, Amen. Alleluia. Psalm 121:1-5. Sister leaves 1. Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS W. 105. Decoration NMB 1726 recto has a patterned left-hand border in blue, brown and gold with ivy leaves in red, green, and blue. In the top left-hand corner is a grotesque marginal figure in red with small blue wings. The figure has lion’s legs and a long neck with terminates in the mouth of a lion. NMB 1726 verso also has a similar patterned left-hand border, but in an initial H is a bust portrait of Christ with a gold leaf background. The figure of Christ has long curling hair and beard, with a robe in the same brown patterns as the border. He is illuminated in the East Anglian style of the mid-14th century. NMB 1727 recto is surrounded by a border that has many of the same style as NMB 1726 but with added acanthus and oak leaves. Within an initial D, with a background of gold leaf, is a scene of the Crucifixion. Christ is the central figure bent down dead on the Cross. On the left is Longinus who is thrusting his lance into the side of Christ where miraculously blood and water gush from the wound. Longinus wears a blue-grey robe with red patterns echoing the blood of Christ. He wears a red patterned tunic underneath and wears a hat in red and blue-grey. To the right is another soldier. He wears a pointed hat and wears a grey tunic with red patterned hose underneath. In his right hand he holds a club. NMB 1727 verso, has a left-hand border pattern similar to NMB 1726. Provenance Parent volume 1. Butler Hours was made for the Butler family c.1350. 2. Image of St Thomas Becket damaged in the English Reformation in the mid-16th century. 3. Owned by John Boykett Jarman in the first half of the 19th century. 4. Manuscript damaged by flood water in the cellar of Jarman during a storm in London in 1846. 5. Exhibited by T. Taylor at the Royal Archaeological Institute in London in 1878. 6. Owned by the Parisian bookbinder Leon Gruel before 1931 and now in separate leaves. 7. Majority of leaves bought from Gruel by the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. Present leaf 1. One of the leaves that was owned by the Parisian bookbinder Leon Gruel before 1931. 2. Purchased by M. George Ryaux for the Nationalmuseum in 1955. Exhibited 1. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, December 1987-March 1988. Commentary The cuttings represented by NMB 1726-1727 were originally part of a manuscript known as the Butler Hours that are now found in the collection of the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore. The name derives from the patrons of the book, the Boteler or Butler family of Wem in Shropshire, England who were descended from both English nobility and Welsh princes. The family coat of arms is present in the bottom border of the first page of Matins of the Virgin. The Butler Hours has been dated as early as 1340 however one of the miniatures depicts a Boteler lord with his wife and daughter at Mass. This could then represent William le Boteler, the 3rd Lord of Wem (†1369), as he had a daughter but no male heir. This could then present a date in the 1350s or 1360s (Bagnoli et. al. 2011). Smith (2019) has given a more precise date of c. 1340-1345 as she believes that the figures are William le Boteler, the 2nd Lord of Wem (1298-1361), with his first wife Margaret and perhaps Ela, second wife and widow of William le Boteler, the 1st Lord of Wem (†1334). The Butler Hours was illuminated by two artists who are unknown but also collaborated on manuscripts now held in collections in Trinity College, the British Library, Corpus Christi College in Oxford and even on a folio of the famous Luttrell Psalter (Dennison 1986, Sandler 1986, Smith 2019). These artists are believed to have been active in either Cambridge or Oxford during the mid-14th century. The original manuscript was believed to contain over 100 folios. There was a foliation written in ink c.1800 on the upper left of most of the surviving rectos. In NMB 1726, it is possible to make out the number 78 from this foliation and in NMB 1727 it is number 86. There was destruction of saint’s images in the manuscript such as St Thomas Becket as well as references to the Pope, that were carried out during the English Reformation in the middle of the 16th century. The next owner we know of was the London goldsmith and book collector, John Boykett Jarman (1782-1864). A great storm happened in London in 1846 that flooded his house and damaged his manuscripts including the Butler Hours, as well as the Hours of Yolande of Flanders, see NMB 1696-1697 (Backhouse 1968, Quandt 1992). It is unsure when the manuscript was cut apart, but the Butler Hours were exhibited intact by a T. Taylor, from Wakefield, England at a meeting of the Royal Archaeological Institute in London 1878. It then later ended up in the hands of the Parisian bookbinder Leon Gruel. In 1931, the Walters Art Museum purchased the majority of the manuscript leaves from Leon Gruel. Bibliography Abel, Ulf, and Nils Göran Hökby (eds.), Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1987), no. 41, p. 40. Backhouse, Janet, ‘A Victorian Connoisseur and His Manuscripts: The Tale of Mr. Jarman and Mr. Wing’ in The British Museum Quarterly, Vol. 32, No. 3/4 (Spring, 1968), pp. 76-92. Bagnoli, Martina and Kathryn Gerry, The Medieval World: The Walters Art Museum (London: D Giles Limited, 2011), pp. 166-167, fig. 150. Bagnoli, Martina, Holger A. Klein, C. Griffith Mann, and James Robinson (eds.), Treasures of Heaven: Saints, Relics and Devotion in Medieval Europe (London: British Museum Press, 2011), no. 102, pp. 188-189. Dennison, Lynda, ‘The Fitzwarin Psalter and Its Allies: A Reappraisal’ in England in the Fourteenth Century: Proceedings of the 1985 Harlaxton Symposium, ed. by W. M. Ormrod (Woodbridge: Boydell, 1986), p. 60, n. 90. Nordenfalk, Carl, Bokmålningar från medeltid och renässans i Nationalmusei samlingar (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1979), no. 11, pp. 56-57. Quandt, Abigail B., ‘The Butler Hours: The Conservation and Rebinding of a Fourteenth Century English Book of Hours’ in The Institute Of Paper Conservation: Conference Papers, Manchester 1992, ed. by Sheila Fairbrass (London: Institute of Paper Conservation, 1992) pp. 171-177. Sandgren, Eva Lindqvist, Illuminated Manuscripts in Swedish Collections, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/resultList.jsf?dswid=7830&p=1&searchType=EXTENDED&sortString=creationYear_sort_asc&noOfRows=10&af=%5B%22ARCHIVE_ORG_ID_facet%3A67%22%5D&query=&aq=%5B%5B%7B%22HOST%22%3A%22alvin-record%3A471052%22%7D%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D Sandler, Lucy Freeman, Gothic Manuscripts: 1285–1385, 2 vols. (London: Harvey Miller, 1986), 2:130–31, no. 117. Smith, Kathryn A., ‘Moralizing the Mass in the Butler Hours’ in Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, Vol. 4, No. 2, (2019), pp. 187-230. Wieck, Roger S., Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art (New York: George Braziller inc., 1997). Research project 2022-2023, Illuminated Manuscript, Christian Etheridge, Art Historian.
Collection
Geographical origin