Two More Miniatures from the Loredan Hours

Greg Clark has kindly contacted me, sending me a scan of a slide found among the those of the late Anne van Buren, depicting two more of the missing leaves of the Loredan Hours, about which I have written before, here in 2012 and here in 2014.

A Tree of Affinity

One of the miniatures in the private collection that I am cataloguing is this leaf with a fine miniature of a Tree of Affinity:

I already knew it from reproductions is a series of dealer an auction catalogues from the past few decades:

The Voynich Manuscript

Michal Habdank-Wojnicz, alias Wilfrid Voynich

I have been sent by its publisher a copy of The Voynich Manuscript: The World's Most Mysterious and Esoteric Codex, with Foreword by Stephen Skinner and Introduction by Rafał T. Prinke and René Zandbergen (Watkins, 2017).

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.