The James A.de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor . Illuminated Manuscripts

# 1 - 2 Delaisse , L. M. J. ; Marrow, James H.; De Wit, J. ; National Trust ; Waddesdon Manor. Illuminated Manuscripts. The James A. de Rothschild Collection at Waddesdon Manor. Catalog of the manuscripts inherited by James A. de Rothschild from his father Baron Edmond de Rothschild, now the property of the National Trust for places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty (of Great Britain) Published for the National Trust by Office du livre, Fribourg, first edition, 1977. - Cloth, large 8vo, gilt device on front board, 32 cm, slipcased, 608 pp, 46 colour plates (some mounted), numerous black and white illustrations. A splendid catalogue of a superb collection, but more than this since the catalogue was intended also to explainand illustrate Delaisse 's method of examining and interpreting manuscripts. The earliest manuscripts in the collection "are a thirteenth century Italian Bible, which is decorated but not illustrated, and a Liturgical Psalter, which was probaby written between 1326 and 1328 and which was decorated and illustrated in the workshop of Jean Pucelle. The remaining manuscripts are all fifteenth or sixteenth century, and, with the exception of two Italian Books of Hours, they are French or Netherlandish. The quality of the collection is rather uneven. The outstanding manuscripts are two Books of Hours illuminated respectively by Jean Bourdichon and by Simon Bening."-from a contemporary review. From the introduction: "The material description of each manuscript in this catalogue .describes in succession: I. The material and its size. II. The construction of the book in quires or gatherings. III. The preparation of the bifolio, by pricking and ruling. IV. The text, of which contents and script are examined separately, V. The decorations, in the order of their importance in relation to the text: initials, paragraph signs, line endings, and borders. VI. The illustration of the text with miniatures, of which the subjects and techniques are distingui. - language : english text Size: 240 X320 mm. Quarto.…