Very good condition of First Edition of this book, previously owned by Robert Lenkiewicz (bookplate inside front cover, see photograph). The book is in fine condition, the dust jacket is very nice for its age but front is faded, but uniformly so looks fine (see photograph). A very nice copy of a superb book which has great provenance. Well illustrated with colour and black & white photographs.
Inside front cover of dust jacket:
The de Brailes Hours is the earliest surviving independent Book of Hours, dating from about 1240. The work of William de brailes,of Oxford, it is lavishly illusrated throughout with miniaures and historiated initials of fine quality, with an interseting sequence of scenes. As the first example of this new type of text, its design and icnography have much that is experimental; equally remakable is the illuminator's handling of the complex programme of illustration.
Claire Donovan provides a detailed discussion of the Hours, its iconography andits place in the thirteenth century Oxford book trade, with five appendices, notes and bibliography. About two-thirds of the manuscript is reproduced in lback and white, with ixteen full-page illustrations of some of the finest illuminated pages.
Inside rear cover of dust jacket:
Claire Donovan studied art history at Oxford and East Anglia.Her doctoral thesis was on early books of hours in England.