A Czech Antiphonal Leaf Dated 1576

On a visit to the Houghton Library in 2018 I went through a box of miscellaneous single leaves, containing all sorts of interesting items. One is a Czech Antiphonal leaf, of which a detail is shown above.

In 2016 I wrote a couple of blogposts about Adalbert Freiherr von Lanna (1836-1909) of Prague, and leaves from his collection (here and here). Back then I had some difficulty locating copies of the sale catalogues, but they are now digitised and online, including that for 6-11 May 1910:

Looking at it this week, one entry in particular caught my eye:

"387. Ein Blatt aus einem grossen Missale. Am linken Rande gegen die Mitte ein Edelmann in ganzer Figur, dabei die Inschrift: ,,Jacob Hanack Wlet Tech Bil Malo Wan XXXVI Leta Pany 1576,” unten Hirten mit Schafen. 58×33.
In Farben und Gold auf Pergament."

Whenever I see a catalogue description that includes something like a colophon or other transcribed inscription I Google it, to see if I can find its present location. The quoted inscription looks like gibberish to me, but with the help of  Google Translate I later learned that "MALO WAN LETA PANY 1576" = "malowan leta pane 1576", i.e. "painted A.D. 1576", and the mention of "Jacob Hanack" with the year 1576 allowed me to identify it as a leaf I photographed at Harvard five years ago. You can get a sense of its very large size from the 6-inch / 15cm black ruler I placed next to its upper left corner in this image:

Harvard, Houghton Library, MS Typ 273

The lower left corner of the verso has the Lanna ink-stamp, as also shown in this blogpost:

Turning back to the recto, Jacob is in the left margin, surrounded by the words and date recorded in the auction catalogue:

The historiated initial shows Jacob Wrestling with the Angel (Genesis 32:24):

and the lower margin has three more episodes from Jacob's life:

 

First, Jacob's wife, Rachel, who is barren, gives him her handmaid with whom to conceive children (Genesis 30:3):

 

Next, Jacob puts sticks, with or without their bark, in front of sheep when they drink at a water-trough, to make them bear either white or speckled offspring (Genesis 30:37-39):

 

Finally, Jacob adds the non-white offspring to Laban's flock (Genesis 30:40):

As for the modern provenance, the 1955 Harvard exhibition catalogue (Illuminated & Calligraphic Manuscripts) records that the leaf was in the "Chadenat sale (Paris, 1953); purchased from Quaritch, 1954", by Philip Hofer, who placed it on deposit, and then bequeathed it, to Harvard. It also explains that Jacob Hanack was a member of the Company of Vignerons. This explains why the upper margins are filled with vines and bunches grapes (but does not explain the relevance of the biblical stories about Jacob!):

Beyond the 1953 catalogue I have not been able to find any bibliography about the leaf (and nothing else is cited in the Library's online catalogue entry); as a rare  dated example of a music manuscript in the Czech language, it perhaps deserves to be studied properly by someone.

[Update, 23 April 2023:] As Farley Katz kindly reminds me in the comments below, the leaf was in the Hachette sale in Paris in 1953, lot 41. (I had in fact already realised this when I first drafted this blogpost, and then somehow failed to mention it!). Here is the title-page and relevant description: 

 

I presume that the 1955 Houghton exhibition catalogue meant "Hachette" when it wrote "Chadenat sale (Paris, 1953)".