Book of Hours: St. Christopher carrying the Christ child

Artist/Maker

DatesMade: Made c. 1400

Material / Technique

Dimensionsh x w: Mått 11,5 x 8,8 cm h x w x d: Bindning 12,6 x 9,5 x 6 cm

Inventory numberNMB 1792

AcqusitionPurchase 1960

Other titlesTitle (sv): Tidebok: Den helige Kristoffer bärande Jesusbarnet över ett vadställe (fol. 18-19) Title (en): Book of Hours: St. Christopher carrying the Christ child Alternative title: Horae secundum usum romanum

DescriptionDescription: NMB 1792 The Sant Cugat Hours. [Sant Cugat del Valles, c.1400] Catalogue raisonné: NMB 1792 The Sant Cugat Hours. [Sant Cugat del Valles, c.1400] Physical Description MATERIAL: Parchment. BINDING: Tight spine green Morocco from the end of the 18th century rebinding with simple gold tooling, modern marbled endpapers, and pink and mint embroidered paper core endbands. DIMENSIONS: 115 × 88 mm (pages)/126 x 95 x 60 mm (binding). NUMBER OF LEAVES: 250ff. RULING: 12 lines of text LANGUAGE: Latin. SCRIPT: Gothic rotunda. RUBRICATION: Rubrics in blue and red. Text Fol. 3-14: Calendar for the Use of Barcelona. Fol. 15-27: Collect prayers for St Jerome. Fol. 28-119: Hours of the Virgin Mary. Fol. 121-130: Hours of the Cross. Fol. 131-158: The penitential psalms. Fol. 171-250: Office of the Dead. Decoration The Book of Hours is decorated with two large and three small miniatures, with many marginal features. Two of the miniatures were inserted later and lack marginal decoration and frames. Fol. 16r: St Jerome dressed as a cardinal with a church in his hand (later insertion). Fol. 19r: Saint Christopher carrying Christ over the water. Illumination for a prayer for wayfarers (Commemoratio sancti Christophori). Fol. 28r: The Annunciation which forms the title page for the Hours of the Virgin Mary. Fol. 35r: The Adoration of the Magi. Fol. 125r: Crucifixion with the Virgin Mary and St John the Evangelist. Illumination for the Hours of the Cross. Fol. 133r: Maiestas Domini illumination that has Christ enthroned in a mandorla representing the Trinity, between the symbols of the four Evangelists. Fol. 166v: Imago pietatis, the Man of Sorrows with the Instruments of the Passion (later insertion). Fol. 171r: Initial D(ilexi) with two gaping skulls for the Office of the Dead’s vesper antiphon. Provenance 1. Written in Catalonia, in the early 15th century. Probably made in the monastery of Sant Cugat del Valles. 2. Purchased at auction for the Nationalmuseum on the 2nd of February 1960 at Sotheby’s, London. Exhibited 1. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, December 1987-March 1988. Commentary The manuscript has roots in the earlier Spanish Gothic art but also points to the new International Style. Two slightly later images have been added, folio 16r and 166v, probably in the 1430-40s. In a letter dated 17th February 1403, King Martin I of Aragon (1356-1410) wrote to the abbot of San Cugat Abbey to ask him to send his illuminator to him, so the king could have his book finished. This book was the lavishly illuminated manuscript, now known as the Breviary of King Martin I of Aragon, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. Rothschild 2529. The Breviary of King Martin and the San Cugat Hours are illuminated by the same artist. The San Cugat Hours was probably made in the monastery of Sant Cugat del Valles. It was written for the liturgical use of Rome but with a calendar for the use of Barcelona. The manuscript is very complicated as parts have been moved from other manuscripts (see articles by Planas). Bibliography Abel, Ulf, and Nils Göran Hökby (eds.), Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1987), no. 46, p. 48. Nordenfalk, Carl, Bokmålningar från medeltid och renässans i Nationalmusei samlingar (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1979), no. 24, pp. 92-96. Planas, Josefina, La miniatura catalana del período Internacional, Primera generación, 2 vols. Edición microfichada, Universitat de Barcelona, (1992). Planas, Josefina, El esplendor del Gótico Catalán: La miniatura a comienzos del siglo XV (Lleida: Edicions de la Universitat de Lleida, 1998), pp. 78-87. Planas, Josefina, El Breviario de Martín el Humano (Valencia, Universitat de València, 2009), pp. 139-144. Planas, Josefina, ‘La ilustración del libro en la Corona de Aragón en tiempos del Compromiso de Caspe: 1396-1420’in Artigrama, 26, (2011), pp. 431-477. Planas, Josefina, ‘Un códice inédito conservado en el Archivo Capitular de Zaragoza y su filiación con el Gótico Internacional de la Corona de Aragón’ in La miniatura y el grabado de la Baja Edad Media en los archivos españoles, ed. by María del Carmen Lacarra Ducay (Zaragoza: Institución Fernando el Católico, 2012), pp. 157-202. 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 Research project 2022-2023, Illuminated Manuscript, Christian Etheridge, Art Historian.

Exhibited

Collection

MaterialParchment