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![THOMAS À KEMPIS, De Imitatione Christi, Book I, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England, mid-19th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2016/CKS/2016_CKS_12141_0022_002(thomas_a_kempis_de_imitatione_christi_book_i_in_latin_illuminated_manu114418).jpg?w=1)
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Details
THOMAS À KEMPIS, De Imitatione Christi, Book I, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [England, mid-19th century]
An appealing and crisp example of Victorian manuscript illumination; the text the first book of Thomas à Kempis’s popular handbook for medieval spiritual life.
259 x 200mm. v (paper) + 19 vellum leaves, each interleaved with one paper leaf + v (paper), complete, perhaps part of a 4-volume 38 lines, written space: 166 x 97mm, one illuminated title page with full, inhabited, borders, 24 historiated initials with full or partial borders, one illuminated initial with partial border. Gilt-tooled red morocco with silver corner- and centre-piece signed by Zaehnsdorf (spine lightly rubbed).
Provenance: The illuminator is Frances Colthurst (née Douglas Dick), daughter of William Douglas Dick, sister of Brigadier General Archibald Campbell Douglas Dick of Pitkerro (1847-1927) and wife of Colonel David La Touche Colthurst (1828-1907) (inscription on f.1: ‘Illuminated by Aunt Frances [Mrs Colthurst]') – Rev. Canon Barrington Douglas Dick, New Abbey, Dumfries (d.1939).
Content: De Imitatione Christi, Book I: Admonitiones ad Vitam spiritualem utiles, ch. I-XV ff.2-18v.
An appealing and crisp example of Victorian manuscript illumination; the text the first book of Thomas à Kempis’s popular handbook for medieval spiritual life.
259 x 200mm. v (paper) + 19 vellum leaves, each interleaved with one paper leaf + v (paper), complete, perhaps part of a 4-volume 38 lines, written space: 166 x 97mm, one illuminated title page with full, inhabited, borders, 24 historiated initials with full or partial borders, one illuminated initial with partial border. Gilt-tooled red morocco with silver corner- and centre-piece signed by Zaehnsdorf (spine lightly rubbed).
Provenance: The illuminator is Frances Colthurst (née Douglas Dick), daughter of William Douglas Dick, sister of Brigadier General Archibald Campbell Douglas Dick of Pitkerro (1847-1927) and wife of Colonel David La Touche Colthurst (1828-1907) (inscription on f.1: ‘Illuminated by Aunt Frances [Mrs Colthurst]') – Rev. Canon Barrington Douglas Dick, New Abbey, Dumfries (d.1939).
Content: De Imitatione Christi, Book I: Admonitiones ad Vitam spiritualem utiles, ch. I-XV ff.2-18v.
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