25 - Cutting from an early choirbook, with a large illuminated initial, in Latin, manuscript on vellum, [France, fourteenth century], rectangular cutting, with 5 lines of text in a fine and angular gothic bookhand, accompanied by music in square notation on a 4-line red stave, capitals touched in red, red rubrics and initials, one very large initial ‘M’ in dark pink with salmon-pink scrollwork overlaid, enclosing thin scrolling coloured foliage tendrils terminating in delicately painted blue ivyleaves and coloured flowerheads on burnished gold grounds, the initial itself on blue grounds framed in gold (and with notches out of its corners), hairline foliage terminating in gold ivyleaves and bezants and blue teardrop-shaped leaves cascading down the adjacent margin, this cutting later reused on a bookbinding and hence much stained and scuffed, cut down at edges, with some losses there, folds and other damage, reverse partly obscured by paper still adhering there, overall somewhat battered condition, 205 by 200mm.

Cutting from an early choirbook, with a large illuminated initial, in Latin, manuscript on vellum, [France, fourteenth century], rectangular cutting, with 5 lines of text in a fine and angular gothic bookhand, accompanied by music in square notation on a 4-line red stave, capitals touched in red, red rubrics and initials, one very large initial ‘M’ in dark pink with salmon-pink scrollwork overlaid, enclosing thin scrolling coloured foliage tendrils terminating in delicately painted blue ivyleaves and coloured flowerheads on burnished gold grounds, the initial itself on blue grounds framed in gold (and with notches out of its corners), hairline foliage terminating in gold ivyleaves and bezants and blue teardrop-shaped leaves cascading down the adjacent margin, this cutting later reused on a bookbinding and hence much stained and scuffed, cut down at edges, with some losses there, folds and other damage, reverse partly obscured by paper still adhering there, overall somewhat battered condition, 205 by 200mm. *** This cutting is perhaps all that remains of a once grand and glittering French Choirbook.