[Illuminated Manuscript | Arts & Crafts] Devotional / Artist's Book

Devotional manuscript of the Creation, the Creed, and modern spiritual quotations, with watercolor miniatures of Swiss and French views. N.p. (probably Switzerland / France / England), c. 1910-1920.

14pp., stiff cream paper written and illustrated on rectos only, each page framed in ink and filled with a combination of hand-lettered text and miniature watercolor panels; text in English and French. Unsigned, but very clearly the work of a single, consistent hand. Vellum boards, page edges stained blue. Measures approx. 6" x 9.5".

A charming Arts & Crafts-era neo-medieval devotional manuscript, organizing the seven days of Creation around the gifts of the Spirit and the phrases of the Apostles’ Creed / Lord’s Prayer, and decorating them with a mix of copied manuscript imagery and presumably the artist's own travel views.

Each leaf is laid out as an illuminated page: a narrow text column in a gothic hand, flanked by one or more watercolor miniatures and sprays of foliage, birds, cats, rabbits, and other marginalia in imitation of late-medieval books of hours. 

The "Sunday" opening shows the Spirit moving upon the waters, a red descending dove set against a roundel of sunset sea; "Monday" and later days carry gifts such as Light and Wisdom, Understanding, Knowledge, Fear of the Lord, mapped to the days of Creation and to clauses of the Creed ("I believe in God the Father Almighty… Thy Kingdom come… I believe in the Communion of Saints… the Resurrection of the body, & the life everlasting," etc.). One page is explicitly noted as “Copied from MS in British Museum”, confirming the artist’s use of actual medieval exemplars.

Interleaved with these biblical and liturgical texts are short spiritual and literary passages, several in French, quoted and carefully attributed in the margins: Victor Hugo, Burne-Jones, H(enri) Perreyve, St. Francis Xavier, and others. Several miniatures are topographical and captioned with place-names: "Lucerne - Franziskanerplatz", "Beauvais", mountain landscapes, village churches, and fountains. 

The drawing is capable but markedly individual (with but a hint of William Blake): not a professional scribe’s hand, but a serious amateur with a particular love of birds, flowering branches, and small narrative scenes (fishermen at the oars under a radiant Christ, a Tree of Jesse with “Radix Jesse floruit,” villagers in conversation beneath banners, etc.).

Vellum boards with some light rubbing to edges and corners, some small stains and browning to covers. Boards slightly splayed outwards. Pages lightly browned, some spotting to endpapers.