Alfred Henry Huth (1850-1910)

Following my blog post about Henry Huth, Ian Jackson contacted me with the following amusing note about his son Alfred (shown above), which I share with his permission:

"The younger Huth is also worthy of attention. He wanted to marry his cousin, but his (or their) parents forbade it on grounds of consanguinity. He then spent several years studying the subject, producing not only a thin (but pioneering) bibliography on the marriage of near kin, but a fat book on its history and anthropology, abundantly documented as only a bookworm could. 

His conclusion was that the only form of incest generally condemned around the globe was between parties of vastly different age. The family realized that they're been let off lightly, and consented to the marriage. It's the most heartwarming story of applied bibliography I know."

Here are some of Alfred Huth's publications:

• The marriage of near kin considered with respect to the laws of nations, the results of experience and the teachings of biology (London, 1885, second edition 1887).
• "The Fertilization of Plants and Consanguineous Marriage ...", The Westminster Review (London, 1877).
• An Index to books and papers on marriage between near kin. From the Appendix to the Report of the Index Society (London, 1879).

Leaves Bound for Mark Lansburgh?

Mark Lansburgh [Source]

Four leaves of the so-called Knyvett Hours (of which two other leaves with miniatures were sold at Sotheby's on Tuesday), now at LACMA (the Los Angeles County Museum of Art), are bound in plain parchment over pasteboards, with a title in gilt capitals on the front cover and spine, and signed on the turn-in “Bound by Sangorski & Sutcliffe, London, England”.

Quires From a Rennes Breviary, now in New York

On a recent Saturday in New York I visited the Public Library and examined a few manuscripts that were - understandably - not considered sufficiently beautiful or interesting for inclusion in the 2006 Splendors of the Word exhibition.

Cuttings at the Walters

I spent part of the Easter weekend sorting through my filing-cabinet of photocopies. Among them was a brief article by Judith Oliver in an old issue of the Walters Art Gallery Bulletin, called "Manuscripts, Scissors, and Paste" (vol.31, no.3, December 1978, pp.[1-2]), in which she discusses two examples of manuscripts being cut up.

The first (above) caught my eye because I recognised the style: the illumination is attributable to the so-called Almagest atelier, and it reminds me of some leaves in a private collection I am currently cataloguing, which have a number of their illuminated initials cut out.

More About The Elmhirst-Courtanvaux Hours

Several more leaves from the manuscript I am calling the Elmhirst-Courtanvaux Hours have been consigned for sale at Sotheby's on 23 May. They provide two important clues as to the place of origin and the patron.

Tracing the Present Whereabouts

In a previous post I mentioned some cuttings from an early 15th-century Parisian Book of Hours, each with a miniature in the style of Jacquemart de Hesdin. I took the reproduction above from the 1983 Sotheby's catalogue in which they were last sold, as lot 99.

A reader contacted me to ask if I knew where they are now, and I didn't. But I thought that it ought to be possible to work it out.

A Fifth New Leo X cutting

I have written about a dismembered Missal of Leo X several times, most recently here. Browsing images of cuttings in Parisian collections I came across this initial "P", in the Musée des arts décoratifs, shown above.

The online description is vague: