The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
The Digital Walters is a branch of The Walters Art Museum Manuscripts Department.
This late fifteenth-century manuscript is one of the earliest surviving examples from a small group of illustrated compilations of proverbs. Each drawing and accompanying verse refer to a commonly known proverb or turn of phrase. The verse does not typically include the phrase, so the combination of image and text is like a riddle that would bring the saying to mind (the proverbs are used in this catalog record as the titles of the images). The proverbs can be both entertaining and moralizing, and they frequently refer to religious life, farming and trades, and acceptable (or unacceptable) behavior. This manuscript originally contained more entries, but several leaves were detached at some point or not included when the book was rebound. Two leaves separated from this manuscript are now in the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan in Paris. A third individual leaf (fol.add.1), which has significant damage on one side, was purchased by the Walters Art Museum in the 1990s.
Littera batarda cursiva by several scribes, capitals with large sweeping curves and extenders, lacking punctuation; some illustrations labeled with early cursive script by several different hands (e.g. "lange" on fol. 6v, "le fo[u]" on fol. 32r)
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Principal cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Cataloger: Vinson, Aubrey
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Herbold, Rebekah
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Vinson, Aubrey
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Polidori, Elisabetta
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p.848, no. 514.
Miner, Dorothy and Grace Frank. Proverbs en rimes: Text and illustrations of the Fifteenth Century from a French Manuscript in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937.
Frank, Grace. "Proverbs en Rimes (B)," Romanic Review 31 (1940): 209-238.
Foote, Timothy. The World of Bruegel : c. 1525-1569. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 142, illus. (p. 2).
Zick, Gisela. "Der zerbrochene Krug als Bildmotiv des 18. Jahrhunderts," Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 31 (1969): 149-150, fig. 100 (p. 19).
Schrader, J.L. The Waning Middle Ages : an Exhibition of French and Netherlandish Art from 1350 to 1500, Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of "The waning of the Middle Ages" by Johan Huizinga. Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1969, no. 16, pls. 56-57 (fols. 10v, 86v).
Bowles, E. A. "A Checklist of Musical Instruments in Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Manuscripts at the Walters Art Gallery," Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 32/4 (1976): 719-726.
Zotter, Hans. Bibliographie faksimilierter Handschriften. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1976, p. 36.
Kunzle, D. "Brueghel's Proverb Painting and the World Upside Down," The Art Bulletin 59 (1977): 199.
Schulize-Busacker, E. "Eléments de culture populaire dans la littérature courtoise." La culture populaire au moyen âge. Etudes présentés au quatrième colloque de l'Institut d'études médiévales de l'Université de Montréal 2-3 April 1977. Montreal, 1979, pp. 84, 85, 87, 89, 97, 99, illus. (fols. 15v, 24v, 17v, 39v, 70, 78).
Massing, Jean Michel. "Proverbial wisdom and social criticism: two new pages from the Walters Art Gallery's "Proverbes en Rimes"," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983): 208-210.
Russell, Daniel S. The emblem and device in France, French Forum Monographs 59. Lexington, Kentucky: French Forum, 1985, p. 198.
Céard, Jean and Jean-Claude Margolin. Rébus de la Renaissance: des images qui parlent. Vol. 1. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986, pp. 141-145, figs. 53-59 (fols. 1v, 2v, 4v, 5v, 22r, 26v, 27r).
Vandenbroeck, Paul. Jheronimus Bosch : tussen volksleven en stadscultuur. Berchem: EPO, 1987, pp. 105, 110 (refs. to proverbs numbered I, IX, XLVIII, LIX, LXIV), 127, 220, 221.
Burin, Elizabeth. "Pierre Sala's Pre-emblematic Manuscripts," Emblematica 3 (1988): 8-11, 21-23.
Saunders, Alison. The Sixteenth-century French Emblem Book: a Decorative and Useful Genre. Geneva: Droz, 1988, p. 39.
Edmunds, S. "Catalogue des Manuscrits Savoyards," in Les Manuscrits enluminés des comptes et ducs de Savoie, ed. A. Paravicini Bagliani (Turin 1989), pp. 215, 222.
Jones, Malcolm. "Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art I: Proverbial Follies and Impossibilities," Folklore 100/2 (1989): 201, 207, 208, 210.
Jones, Malcolm. "The Depiction of Proverbs in Late Medieval Art," Europhras 88: Phraséologie Contrastive. Actes du Colloque International, Klingenthal-Strasbourg, 12-16 May 1989, ed. G. Gréciano, Collection Recherches Germaniques 2. Strasbourg : Université des sciences humaines, Département d'études allemandes, 1989, pp. 205, 206, 212.
Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 2, Part 2. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 366-375, cat. no. 176, figs. 307, 308 (fols. 22r, 32r).
Fisher, Carol and Kathleen L. Scott, eds.. Art Into Life: Collected Papers from the Kresge Art Museum Medieval Symposia. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995, p. 201 (fol. 86v).
Russell, Daniel. Emblematic Structures in Renaissance French Culture. University of Toronto Press, 1995, p. 258.
Burin, Elizabeth. "Of Pigs and Parchment: Reassembling Dismembered Manuscripts". 49 No.1. The Walters. 01/1996:4-5.
Lindahl, Carl. Encyclopedia of Medieval Folklore. ABC-CLIO, 2000, p. 794 (fol. 17v).
Metzger, Wolfgang. Lebensbilder des Mittelalters: Handel und Handwerk des Mittelalters im Spiegel der Buchmalerei. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt ADEVA, 2002, p. 147-149 (fols. 10v-41r).
Noel, William and Daniel Weiss. The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Bible. London: Third Millennium Publishing; Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2002, p. 88.
Bagnoli, Martina, ed. Prayers in Code: Books of Hours from Renaissance France. Baltimore: The Walters Art Museum, 2009, no. 20, p. 79 (fol. 17r).
Gibson, Walter S. Figures of Speech: Picturing Proverbs in Renaissance Netherlands. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Bagnoli, Martina. The Medieval World. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2011, p. 153, fig. 137.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
Savoy, France
Ca. 1475-1500 CE
book
Non-original Binding
Rebound in France, twentieth century; crimson leather over boards sewn on five single cords; identical blind tooled design on front and back boards: rectangular sections of intertwining vines at sides and foliate squares at corners, central panel with two columns of three roundels (containing a pelican and chicks, a bird with two eggs, a baboon, a sheep, a feline, and a man) with two confronted dragons at top and bottom; six compartments at spine framed by thin blind tooled borders, "RECEUIL DE PROVERBES" in second compartment, "1470" in third compartment; gold line along board-edges; narrow crimson turn-ins; white parchment pastedowns bordered with three gold lines, stamped "GRUEL" in gold on front pastedown at bottom center; endbands in green, yellow, and red silk worked with edge-bead around two-tiered cord core; modern green silk ribbon marker and gilt edges added in nineteenth or twentieth century
The primary language in this manuscript is French, Middle (ca.1400-1600).
Created in Savoy in the late 1480s
Notes in pencil, "12" on flyleaf iv, "XVᵉ / Le plus ancien connu" on flyleaf ii,r in nineteenth or twentieth century
Léon Gruel, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century; Gruel collection number "12" in pencil on flyleaf iv; Gruel and Engelmann bookplate inscribed "No. 413"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel on February 17, 1906; receipt housed in museum archives
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
Savoy, France
Ca. 1475-1500 CE
book
The primary language in this manuscript is French, Middle (ca.1400-1600).
Created in Savoy in the late 1480s
Notes in pencil, "12" on flyleaf iv, "XVᵉ / Le plus ancien connu" on flyleaf ii,r in nineteenth or twentieth century
Léon Gruel, Paris, late nineteenth or early twentieth century; Gruel collection number "12" in pencil on flyleaf iv; Gruel and Engelmann bookplate inscribed "No. 413"
Henry Walters, Baltimore, purchased from Gruel on February 17, 1906; receipt housed in museum archives
Walters Art Museum, 1931, by Henry Walters' bequest
This late fifteenth-century manuscript is one of the earliest surviving examples from a small group of illustrated compilations of proverbs. Each drawing and accompanying verse refer to a commonly known proverb or turn of phrase. The verse does not typically include the phrase, so the combination of image and text is like a riddle that would bring the saying to mind (the proverbs are used in this catalog record as the titles of the images). The proverbs can be both entertaining and moralizing, and they frequently refer to religious life, farming and trades, and acceptable (or unacceptable) behavior. This manuscript originally contained more entries, but several leaves were detached at some point or not included when the book was rebound. Two leaves separated from this manuscript are now in the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan in Paris. A third individual leaf (fol.add.1), which has significant damage on one side, was purchased by the Walters Art Museum in the 1990s.
Littera batarda cursiva by several scribes, capitals with large sweeping curves and extenders, lacking punctuation; some illustrations labeled with early cursive script by several different hands (e.g. "lange" on fol. 6v, "le fo[u]" on fol. 32r)
Principal cataloger: Randall, Lilian M.C.
Principal cataloger: Walters Art Museum curatorial staff and researchers since 1934
Cataloger: Vinson, Aubrey
Editor: Herbert, Lynley
Contributor: Emery, Doug
Contributor: Herbold, Rebekah
Contributor: Tabritha, Ariel
Contributor: Vinson, Aubrey
Contributor: Wiegand, Kimber
Conservator: Polidori, Elisabetta
Conservator: Quandt, Abigail
De Ricci, Seymour. Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada. Vol. 1. New York: H. W. Wilson Company, 1935, p.848, no. 514.
Miner, Dorothy and Grace Frank. Proverbs en rimes: Text and illustrations of the Fifteenth Century from a French Manuscript in the Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1937.
Frank, Grace. "Proverbs en Rimes (B)," Romanic Review 31 (1940): 209-238.
Foote, Timothy. The World of Bruegel : c. 1525-1569. New York: Time-Life Books, 1968, p. 142, illus. (p. 2).
Zick, Gisela. "Der zerbrochene Krug als Bildmotiv des 18. Jahrhunderts," Wallraf-Richartz Jahrbuch 31 (1969): 149-150, fig. 100 (p. 19).
Schrader, J.L. The Waning Middle Ages : an Exhibition of French and Netherlandish Art from 1350 to 1500, Commemorating the Fiftieth Anniversary of the Publication of "The waning of the Middle Ages" by Johan Huizinga. Lawrence: University of Kansas Museum of Art, 1969, no. 16, pls. 56-57 (fols. 10v, 86v).
Bowles, E. A. "A Checklist of Musical Instruments in Fifteenth-Century Illuminated Manuscripts at the Walters Art Gallery," Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association 32/4 (1976): 719-726.
Zotter, Hans. Bibliographie faksimilierter Handschriften. Graz: Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, 1976, p. 36.
Kunzle, D. "Brueghel's Proverb Painting and the World Upside Down," The Art Bulletin 59 (1977): 199.
Schulize-Busacker, E. "Eléments de culture populaire dans la littérature courtoise." La culture populaire au moyen âge. Etudes présentés au quatrième colloque de l'Institut d'études médiévales de l'Université de Montréal 2-3 April 1977. Montreal, 1979, pp. 84, 85, 87, 89, 97, 99, illus. (fols. 15v, 24v, 17v, 39v, 70, 78).
Massing, Jean Michel. "Proverbial wisdom and social criticism: two new pages from the Walters Art Gallery's "Proverbes en Rimes"," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 46 (1983): 208-210.
Russell, Daniel S. The emblem and device in France, French Forum Monographs 59. Lexington, Kentucky: French Forum, 1985, p. 198.
Céard, Jean and Jean-Claude Margolin. Rébus de la Renaissance: des images qui parlent. Vol. 1. Paris: Maisonneuve et Larose, 1986, pp. 141-145, figs. 53-59 (fols. 1v, 2v, 4v, 5v, 22r, 26v, 27r).
Vandenbroeck, Paul. Jheronimus Bosch : tussen volksleven en stadscultuur. Berchem: EPO, 1987, pp. 105, 110 (refs. to proverbs numbered I, IX, XLVIII, LIX, LXIV), 127, 220, 221.
Burin, Elizabeth. "Pierre Sala's Pre-emblematic Manuscripts," Emblematica 3 (1988): 8-11, 21-23.
Saunders, Alison. The Sixteenth-century French Emblem Book: a Decorative and Useful Genre. Geneva: Droz, 1988, p. 39.
Edmunds, S. "Catalogue des Manuscrits Savoyards," in Les Manuscrits enluminés des comptes et ducs de Savoie, ed. A. Paravicini Bagliani (Turin 1989), pp. 215, 222.
Jones, Malcolm. "Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art I: Proverbial Follies and Impossibilities," Folklore 100/2 (1989): 201, 207, 208, 210.
Jones, Malcolm. "The Depiction of Proverbs in Late Medieval Art," Europhras 88: Phraséologie Contrastive. Actes du Colloque International, Klingenthal-Strasbourg, 12-16 May 1989, ed. G. Gréciano, Collection Recherches Germaniques 2. Strasbourg : Université des sciences humaines, Département d'études allemandes, 1989, pp. 205, 206, 212.
Randall, Lilian M. C. Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery. Vol. 2, Part 2. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992, pp. 366-375, cat. no. 176, figs. 307, 308 (fols. 22r, 32r).
Fisher, Carol and Kathleen L. Scott, eds.. Art Into Life: Collected Papers from the Kresge Art Museum Medieval Symposia. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1995, p. 201 (fol. 86v).
Russell, Daniel. Emblematic Structures in Renaissance French Culture. University of Toronto Press, 1995, p. 258.
Burin, Elizabeth. "Of Pigs and Parchment: Reassembling Dismembered Manuscripts". 49 No.1. The Walters. 01/1996:4-5.
Lindahl, Carl. Encyclopedia of Medieval Folklore. ABC-CLIO, 2000, p. 794 (fol. 17v).
Metzger, Wolfgang. Lebensbilder des Mittelalters: Handel und Handwerk des Mittelalters im Spiegel der Buchmalerei. Graz: Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt ADEVA, 2002, p. 147-149 (fols. 10v-41r).
Noel, William and Daniel Weiss. The Book of Kings: Art, War, and the Morgan Library's Medieval Picture Bible. London: Third Millennium Publishing; Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2002, p. 88.
Bagnoli, Martina, ed. Prayers in Code: Books of Hours from Renaissance France. Baltimore: The Walters Art Museum, 2009, no. 20, p. 79 (fol. 17r).
Gibson, Walter S. Figures of Speech: Picturing Proverbs in Renaissance Netherlands. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Bagnoli, Martina. The Medieval World. Baltimore: Walters Art Museum, 2011, p. 153, fig. 137.
These are pages that we pulled aside that disrupted the flow of the manuscript reader. These may be bindings, inserts, bookmarks, and various other oddities.
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