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Local appraiser Mike Odell estimates the value of your treasures and unique possessions via his column, “Treasure Hunt.” To discover how much an item is worth, send a brief (50-word) description of the item, including where you obtained it and any knowledge you have of its history to editor@journal-newspapers.com. Include a 300dpi digital photo of the item. We will select several items each month for this column.
Q: Attached are two pictures (front and back) of a vellum manuscript page I purchased in an antique store in Friday Harbor. It is labeled pg. lxiii. I also bought a second page, labeled xlii. I paid $50 for each of them. This text is for vespers, the evening prayer, for the Feast of St. Andrew on Nov. 30.
The pages are each about 14 inches by 19 inches. The vellum and text are in excellent condition. When I bought them, a small Post-It note said simply, “From Czechoslovakia.” I’m thinking Prague. I had one person who knew something about illustrated manuscripts tell me it looked more like a church book than one from a monastery. I did some online research, and I think that these pages may date from the mid-1400s.
- W.L.
A: Not being able to read Latin myself, I’m not sure what you have or how old it may be, but it looks as if it might be a sheet of liturgical music, which would indicate a monastic origin. The country of origin is generally impossible to determine without some kind of provenance (paper trail), but Eastern Europe is certainly a possibility.
There has been a long history of fine calligraphy in monasteries throughout Europe and the British Isles, particularly in Ireland, where the world-famous Book of Kells was created at the end of the Roman Empire, when barbarians overran Europe in the era we now call the Dark Ages. At that time, nearly everyone capable of creating such a document was a monk.
However, by the 15th century, the wealthier members of society were able to hire scribes to create these works of art. Without a chance to inspect the document itself, I cannot begin to determine its age. But from the photos, the apparent condition of the page indicates that either it has spent the past several centuries protected from handling and exposure to the air, or it is a copy of a document of Middle Ages vintage.
You might consider taking your pages to a museum for authentication of their origin and age. Today there are many monasteries throughout the world that have created a kind of “cottage industry” by copying ancient or medieval manuscripts for decorative use, as a means of supplementing their income.
Estimated value: This page is not elaborate as manuscripts go, but it does seem to be in very good condition. Unless it can be authenticated as original by a well-known authority, we must assume that it is a very good decorative copy. Prices for such a page will usually run between $75 and $150.
