An early 16th century Book of Hours, being a rarer copy printed on paper, and from the workshop of Gilles Hardouyn.

This book is printed in a 30-line format, in a gothic text, and is fully rubricated throughout in red and blue, though much of the blue rubrication has largely faded. While the full suite of near-full and full page metalcut illustrations are not completely present, more than half remain. This Book of Hours has been printed with the original margins being left untrimmed, resulting in a rather large format Hours.

This Hours is profusely illustrated throughout, with 14 of 20 near-full page and full page metalcut illustrations, along with 22 smaller in-text metalcuts, and hundreds of border metalcuts, with numerous figures, saints, creatures, and more.

From 1510-1550, the brothers Gilles and Germain Hardouyn produced hundreds of printed Books of Hours from their workshop in Paris. Gilles served as the printer, and Germain was the illustrator, being registered in the Guild of Illuminators, and later printing and publishing under his own sign. With such quality of works being produced from their workshop, these printed Books of Hours could often be mistaken as illuminated manuscripts.

This Book of Hours has been rebound in 19th century calf, with beautiful and ornate tooling to the covers.

This Book of Hours is lacking quires A, B, C, and leaves D1 and 8.

One volume in quarto, 74 leaves

This volume is in very good shape, with minimal rubbing or wear to the binding. There is some soiling and scattered ink staining throughout, with marginal staining affecting several leaves near the end. There is a bit a worming at the start, affecting several cuts and borders, but not obscuring any text, and mostly affecting the blank margins. There is a small pair of wormholes that develop from the lower right margin of leaf M2 onwards, not affecting any text or borderwork. There are two small tears to the right-side margin of the first three leaves.