Leaf from a Psalter and Prayerbook, with rabbits playing music and dancing in the margin, in Latin, opulently illuminated manuscript on parchment [Germany (probably Hildesheim, or vicinity), parent manuscript dated 1524]

Single leaf, with single column of 26 lines in a professional Germanic book hand, one-line initials in liquid gold or silver on blue or burgundy, three-line initials in same with gold floral sprays within their bodies, full border of realistic foliage and plant cuttings (including a large thistle) on dull gold ground, recto with three rabbits: one playing a hirtenschalmei (shepherd's shawm) while another leads its companion into the dance, verso with a bird and a putto picking strawberries, small spots and stains, else excellent condition, 165 by 135mm.

Provenance:
1. The parent manuscript was a lavish production for a member of the influential Mansfield family (with their arms on fol. 45v), probably living in the vicinity of Hildesheim (with St. Godehard, bishop of Hildesheim, d. 1038, singled out with a miniature). Almost all of its leaves had these charming decorated borders, and two of them were dated 1524.

2. That codex seems to have then passed into French or Belgian ownership, and the arms of Adrienne Louvignies were added in the mid-sixteenth century to fol. 1r. By the nineteenth-century it was in the library of the Comte d'Aspremont-Lynden (his signature of that date).

3. Then in the collection of the brothers Michael Linel (1830-1892) and Albert Linel (1833-1916) of Frankfurt am Main (their L.M. 39); the whole collection acquired by the city of Frankfurt in 1892, with certain items including the parent manuscript of this leaf de-accessioned in 1953 (see G. Swarzenski, Die illuminierten Handschriften und Einzelminaturen des Mittelalters und der Renaissance in Frankfurters Besitz, 1929, no. 151, pp. 181-183, and Peter Kidd's blogpost of October 2014 on the same).

4. Sotheby's, 23 June 1987, lot 100.

5. Sold by Jörn Günther and Bruce Ferrini in 1997, with leaves appearing soon after on the market. Three leaves have been catalogued by S.N. Fliegel as part of the Jeanne Miles Blackburn collection, in the Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999, no. 65, pp. 67-69. The present leaf from the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020) of Grimsby.