(1) Although probably illuminated in Paris, where Jean Pichore was based, the patron clearly lived about 200 miles east of the capital: the Hours of the Virgin are of the Use of Toul; the litany includes St Aper of Toul; the calendar includes the rare feast of Saint Goeric (also known as Abbo and Gury), 7th-century bishop of Metz (which is about 40 miles north-east of Toul) (September 19) and the translation of his relics (June 21), and the even rarer feast of his two daughters, Saints Precia and Victorina (August 27), all in gold, and Gerard, bishop of Toul (23 April), Goldulph, bishop of Metz (September 6), Libraria, whose relics were at Toul (October 8), and Amon, bishop of Toul (October 23), in blue or red inks.

The patron is probably the brown-clad layman depicted kneeling before St Claude (f.150r) and St Anne (f.154v); he and his wife may therefore have been called Claude and Anne. A full-page prefatory miniature shows two figures holding a shield with what was presumably his motto, and his arms overpainted with the arms of France (doubtless by a later owner in order to imply a royal provenance). In fact the original patron’s arms do seem to have been close to the arms of France: these arms were apparently included in most of the three-sided borders, but were later skilfully overpainted. Similarly, the patron was shown kneeling before the Virgin of the Apocalypse (f.197v), also overpainted.

(2) James Toovey, London bookseller; inscribed, perhaps by him, ‘French Missal, very [added: Perfect &] Curious, 1443. Royal Arms’: offered in his 1858 Catalogue of Books in Various Languages, p.140, priced at 100 guineas.

(3) Stanislas Germeau (1790–1867), French administrator and collects or of Limoges enamels: his sale by Potier, Paris, Catalogue des livres rares et précieux: Manuscrits et imprimés composant la bibliothèque de M. S. G.***, 22 March 1869, lot 39.

(4) Ellis & White, London booksellers; bought from them for £420 before 1884 by:

(5) William Waldorf Astor (1848–1919), American Ambassador in Rome 1882–85, and an avid art collects or on a grand scale even before his father died in 1890, making him the richest man in America; he settled in Britain the same year, becoming a naturalised subject in 1899, was created Baron Astor in 1916, and Viscount Astor in 1917. The manuscript was part of the library at his enormous country house, Cliveden, which and at his death passed to his son the second Viscount (1879–1952), and from him to the third Viscount (d.1966), whose typical label with typescript shelfmark ‘A.17’ is on the first flyleaf; it was placed on deposit at the Bodleian Library, Oxford, shortly before his death, where it remained for two decades until the sale of the Trustees of the Astor family at Replica Shoes ’s, London, 1 December 1987, lot 50, with three full-page color and monochrome reproductions, where it sold for £74,800.

(5) Exhibited in New York in 1997: Jörn Günther, Princely Magnificence: An Exhibition of Illuminated Manuscripts and Printed Books from the 13th to the 16th Century (Stalden, 1997) [not numbered or paginated].

Calendar (f.2r), Gospel extracts (f.15r), prayer ‘Obsecro te’ (f.18v), Passion narrative based on St John’s gospel (f.21v), Hours of the Virgin (f.29r), Hours of the Cross (f.67r), Hours of the Spirit (f.69v), Hours of the Holy Sacrament (f.72r), Hours of the Conception of the Virgin (f.74r), Hours of Saint Barbara (f.80r), a Hymn to the Virgin (f.83v), Hours of the Dead (f.85v), Seven Penitential Psalms (f.92r) and Litanies, Office of the Dead (f.104v), memorials to the Saints (f.133v), several hymns and prayers IN FRENCH, the first beginning ‘Ave celui que nous croyons verum dieu d’humaine nature …’ (f.160r), including prayers to the Five Wounds of Christ (f.161r), and in Latin the Wound in Chrst’s side (f.166v), the Three Kings, the Holy Sepulchre, offering 50 days and (f.172v) 6666 years’ indulgences, the Eight Verses of Saint Bernard (f.176r), the prayer of Bede on the Seven Last Words (f.177r), the Os of Saint Bridget (f.179v), five prayers of St Anselm each beginning with the letters of the name of the Virgin, MARIA (187v), more indulgenced prayers, mainly to the Virgin, and, added slightly later, the Seven Os (f.199r).

The illumination is by Jean Pichore (documented in Paris from 1502 until his death in 1521) and his workshop, although some of the compositions (such as the Raising of Lazarus) are apparently derived from those in the Briçonnet Hours (Haarlem, Teylers Museum, MS 78), illuminated c.1485 by Jean Poyer (d. ca. 1503), who was active mainly at Tours in the Loire valley.

On Pichore see Caroline Zöhl, Jean Pichore: Buchmaler, Graphiker und Verleger in Paris um 1500 (Turnhout, 2004), referring to the present manuscript as the Astor Hours (pp. 76, 102, 105, 107, 109, etc., and fig. 92), and on the Briçonnet Hours see Mara Hofmann, Jean Poyer: Das Gesamtwerk (Turnhout, 2004), pp. 90–92. For brief summaries of their careers, styles, and major works, see François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993), pp. 282–85, 306–18, and 411–18.

(f.1r) In a fine landscape with wild flowers in the foreground, a man and woman each dressed only with a cloth around their middle, hold a shield, azure, three fleurs-de-lys or, in chief the motto ‘Omnia ex sola providentia divina’

(f.1v) The Crucifixion, above a scroll inscribed ‘Adoramus te Christe’

(f.14r) St John writing his Revelation on Patmos

(f.18v) The Lamentation, with St John supporting Christ’s head, and Mary Magdalene at his feet

(f.21v) The Betrayal and Arrest of Christ

(f.29r) The Annunciation

(f.37r) The Visitation

(f.45r) The Nativity

(f.52r) The Adoration of the Magi, the face of one of them, doubtless formerly Black, effaced

(f.55r) The Presentation in the Temple

(f.58r) The Flight into Egypt

(f.63r) The Dormition of the Virgin

(f.67r) The Crucifixion

(f. 69v) Pentecost

(f.72r) The Last Supper

(f.74r) The Meeting at the Golden Gate

(f.80v) The Beheading of St Barbara

(f.85v) Dives and Lazarus (an adult soul in hell, and an infant in heaven)

(f.92r) King David Giving the Letter to Uriah

(f.104v) The Raising of Lazarus

(f.133v) The Trinity

(f.148v) St Goeric, bishop of Metz, but here shown crowned and holding a sceptre, flanked by his daughters, Precia and Victorina, who are each seated with an open book

(f.197v) The Virgin of the Apocalypse, holding the Child and standing on the crescent moon

(f.15v) St Luke

(f.16v) St Matthew

(f.17v) St Mark

(f.135v) St Veronica holding the veil

(f.136v) The Meeting at the Golden Gate

(f.137r) The Presentation in the Temple

(f.138v) The Assumption of the Virgin

(f.139r) The Nativity of the Virgin

(f.139v) The Presentation of the Virgin at the Temple

(f.140r) St Michael

(f.142v) St Matthew

(f.144r) St Christopher

(f.145r) St Sebastian

(f.146r) St Roche

(f.146v) St Adrian

(f.147r) St Nicholas

(f.150r) St Claude

(f.152r) St Augustine

(f.153r) St Jerome

(f.154v) St Anne teaching the Virgin Mary to Read, adored by the patron

(f.155r) The Assumption of Mary Magdalene

(f.156r) The Beheading of St Catherine

(f.156v) St Margaret

(f.157v) St Barbara

(f.158v) St Goeric enthroned, flanked by Sts Precia and Victorina, the cathedral in the cityscape background apparently depicts that of Toul

(f.166v) Two angels holding a chalice with the Wound of Christ