Sangorski Keats and Books of Hours at Freeman’s | Hindman Inaugural Western Manuscripts and Miniatures Sale

Freeman’s | Hindman's first Western Manuscripts and Miniatures sale in Chicago on June 27 will present illuminated leaves and Books of Hours from the 13th to the 15th centuries, and showcase more than 70 lots with an estimated total value of $400,000.

Gretchen Hause, Senior Vice President and Co-Head of the Books and Manuscripts department, said that the auction would wrap up June Book Month at Freeman’s | Hindman.

Highlights from the sale include:

* a spectacular 137 jewel binding of a modern illuminated manuscript on vellum of John Keats' poems La Belle Dame sans Merci, Ode on a Grecian Urn, and Ode to Psyche (London, 1928) dating from the period after Alberto Sangorski began to work for Riviere & Sons. The smaller miniatures depict a knight leading La Belle Dame on horseback, the Acropolis, a woodland path, Psyche lying naked on her bed, and Cupid with Psyche. The full-page miniatures show a knight in full armor, the Porch of the Caryatids at the Greek temple of Erechtheion, a Greek urn, and Psyche with peacocks. Estimate: $60,000 - $70,000. 

* Follower of the Boucicaut Master, Book of Hours (Paris, France, probably 1420). With an estimate of $50,000 - $70,000, this large Book of Hours is richly illuminated throughout, every text page decorated with a panel border and surrounded by very large margins. One of the most distinctive illuminators active in the capital at height of the Hundred Years War, the artist evidently trained with the Master of Boucicaut, as is further demonstrated by their collaboration in a manuscript of Boccaccio now in Lisbon. The subjects of the five large miniatures are Visitation, Nativity, Coronation of the Virgin, Presentation in the Temple, and Crucifixion.

* a Book of Hours illuminated by the Master of Raoul du Fou and Jean Serpin in the years 1480-1490 commissioned by a lady living in Rouen who is portrayed in prayer alongside the Virgin and Child, with full-page borders on every page. It also features the bookplate of English writer, horticulturist and plant collector Lady Dorothy Nevill (1826-1913) with the ironic indication “Stolen from Lady Dorothy Nevill” on the front pastedown. Estimate: $40,000 - $60,000