Folio 53: Leaf from a Book of Hours , circa 1420

Paris. 15 lines of text in an attractive gothic book hand. The leaves with a variable number of finely illuminated one- and two-line initials in blue or magenta with white tracery and containing one or more twining flowers in blue, orange, and white, the whole on a burnished gold ground, usually as many line fillers (of the same design) as initials, the text always encolosed on three sides by a bar border of blue and gold, with ancanthus leaf extensions at the bottom, and each side of each leaf with a very intricate full border of rinceaux, consisting of many floral buds, gold bezants and ivy leaves. Vellum.