The Texas Gutenburg Bible

I've just watched a good lecture, by Eric White, analysing the provenance of the copy of the Gutenburg Bible now in the Harry Ransom Center, at Austin, Texas. Despite concerning a printed book, the lecture combines analysis of the most of my favourite clues to a manuscript's provenance: added decoration, handwritten additions, and entries in modern printed catalogues.

For example, there is this inscription, which (as Neil Ker pointed out) indicates that it was in Carthusian ownership:

You can watch the lecture on YouTube here.

George Jackson (1692-1763) of Livorno

[source; identification]

This week, I learned of the existence of the significant library of George Jackson, an English merchant who lived in Livorno, and about whom I would like to know more.

Fragments of a Dismembered Bible Historiale

In December 2015 Bloomsbury auctions offered a cutting "showing the murder of a youth" (lot 61 in the catalogue), attributed to "the early fourteenth-century husband and wife illuminator-team Richard and Jean [sic] de Montbaston":

The text was not precisely identified, and the iconography only tentatively so: "The parent text here may well be from a Bible translation, with part of Proverbs, and if correct, then the scene may represent Cain and Abel".

Bible Leaves in Philadelphia, London, and Paris: Addendum

Further information about the Hastère Bible.

The Burlington Fine Arts Club Exhibition, Winter 1926-27 [Part II] - Addendum

In a previous post about the 1926-27 BFAC exhibition I was unable to identify this pair of Italian leaves:

The Gospel of the Wife of Jesus

Perhaps the most intruguing manuscript provenance story of the year was the unmasking of the so-called Gospel of the Wife of Jesus papyrus as a forgery, in The Atlantic, here. I thought that it would be worth bringing to the attention of anyone who has not already read it: it is a compelling read.

The Elmhirst-Courtanvaux Hours

Ever since encountering one of his manuscripts at Sam Fogg's, circa 2000, I have had an interest in medieval manuscripts from the collection of Harry A. Walton (d.2007), a dairy farmer of Covington, Virginia. They can be recognised by his purple ink-stamp, of which I show two examples here, and by comparison with the descriptions in the Supplement to de Ricci's Census.