Germain Hardouyn was a prolific printer active in Paris from 1500 to 1541, who worked in tandem with his brother Gillet or Gilles Hardouyn. Together or separately, the two brothers furnished the Paris market and the provinces with a large number of impressions of printed Books of Hours, often hand-colored (see Renouard, 1965, 198; J. Müller, Dictionnaire abrégé des imprimeurs/éditeurs français du XVIe s., 1970, p. 76).

2. Charles Ewbank, his engraved name pasted on the upper pastedown on the upper left-hand corner. This might be Charles Ewbank, born in Valenciennes (1819-1867).

3. Dupont de Saint Ouën (Alphonse Fulgence) (1820-1892), from Valenciennes, with an engraved heraldic ex-libris bookplate pasted on front pastedown: he is recorded as a collector of books but also paintings (see Valenciennes, Musée des Beaux-Arts, Abel de Pujol, “César se rendant au sénat aux Ides de Mars”). Interestingly, Dupont de Saint Ouën was an accomplished engraver himself who consigned a large number of etchings and views of Valenciennes in the 1840s and 1850s.

4. European Continental Collection.]]>
2. The manuscript was carefully corrected by a contemporary; on f. 6, Psalm 7, verses 2 and 8, “meam” was omitted, and supplied in margin; corrections in the same hand, ff. 6v, 46, and 49v, where Psalm 69:4, omitted by the scribe, was also supplied in the upper margin. On f. 65rv, Psalm 88:29, “… In aeternum servabo illi miseridordiam meam” is followed by Ps. 88:35, “et que procedunt de labiis.” The omitted verses were copied in the margin, but with errors, and then more legibly on an inserted quarter sheet, now foliated as f. 66 (on the verso, blank on the recto), to correct the mistake. Eye-skip led the scribe to copy mistakenly Psalm 133:2-3 again after Psalm 134:2; the extra verses were cancelled in red on f. 99.

3. Psalters were traditionally used to teach children to read, and there are signs in this volume that it may have been used in this way. The lower margin of f. 14 was used to practice the alphabet, copied in decorative majuscules, and then erased. On f. 83v, in the lower margin in space left blank at the end of Psalm 108, someone added the beginning of a well-known hymn in a rather unpracticed hand and with a number of mistakes, suggesting that this might have been the work of someone still learning Latin (incipit, “Criste qui lux es et dies nodis tenebras et degis lucis … Precamur sancte domine”); another hand then continued the hymn, breaking off when he (or she) ran out of space, “Defende nos in hac nocte nos tibi reos sta//.”

4. We know that the volume remained in Germany into the fifteenth century (top margin, f. 116, note in German dated 1467, “in dem jar da man zale m ccc vnd jiii lxvii jar do hub ich den halgen ….”). Both the images of St. Francis and St. Dominic are damaged in a way that perhaps suggests deliberate defacement rather than ordinary wear. This is particularly true of St. Francis; the saint’s face, hand, and the book he is holding have been completely obliterated. The image of St. Dominic is less-damaged, but one hand and parts of the robe have been removed. Anti-mendicant feeling was strong in parts of Germany in the fifteenth century. It is even possible that this is evidence of use by a Protestant owner – someone who may also have removed the calendar and most of the Litany of saints.

5. Sold at Sotheby’s, July 10, 1972, lot 81, when it was bought by Sion Segre Amar (Turin, 1910-2003) for the Comites Latentes Collection, Geneva, MS 99; deaccessioned and sold at Sotheby’s, June 20, 1989, lot 40, and December 1, 1998, lot. 69.]]>