The Brölemann Catalogues

Manuscripts collected by Henry-Auguste Brölemann between 1824 and his death in 1854, which descended to his grandson Arthur Brölemann, and were eventually sold by his great-granddaughter, Mme. Etienne Mallet in 1926, are scattered around the world.

They are easily recognised by Arthur's bookplate, and a blue-edged octagonal label in the lower left corner of the front pastedown, apparently applied by Henry-Auguste, of at least four similar but slightly different designs:

The Helmingham Hall Manuscripts

Helmingham Hall, Suffolk

I have recently had reason to examine some manuscripts from the Tollemache family collection at Helmingham Hall and, as I mentioned in the previous post, have just finished reading Janet Ing Freeman's The Postmaster of Ipswich: William Stevenson Fitch, Antiquary and Thief (London, 1997), an account of the way in which many manuscripts were stolen from the collection in the 19th century.

This has prompted me to post about how those that survived Fitch's depredations can be recognised.

The Price-Code "CUMBERLAND"

This week I gave a presentation about "Price-Codes and Provenance" at a conference in London; one of my slides is above. I have posted before about how price-codes work.

The Bauffrement Roman de la Rose

Last year I studied a Roman de la Rose manuscript in a private collection, whose opening miniature is shown above, which can be dated about 1310–20. The binding and endleaves provide provide much of interest to the provenance-hunter, including the gilt stamp of Hudson Gurney:

Ege & Duschnes Matts/Mounts

In at least one previous post I have mentioned that distinctive card mounts ("matts" in American English) are an easy way to recognise leaves sold by Otto Ege. I have also discussed the close business relationship with Philip Duschnes.

But I had forgotten until recently that Duschnes sometimes put leaves in mounts very similar to Ege's, as these examples demonstrate:

Duschnes

1902 Forrer Catalogue now available online

It seems that Google scanned Robert Forrer's Unedierte Federzeichnungen Miniaturen und Initialen des Mittelalters (Strassburg, 1902) at the end of December 2014. Even though it appears not to be available in the UK through Google (except as snippet views) it is available through Archive.org.

"A Thousand Years of French Books" (1948)

I recently had a question from a MSS curator friend: Exactly when and where did the 1948 exhibition called "A Thousand Years of French Books" take place?