A single leaf on parchment, c. 233 x 166 mm, from an attractive English Psalter with complex geometric line fillers.
 
The leaf is ruled in ink, c. 171 x 120 mm (ruled), written on twenty-one lines in dark brown ink in a gothic textualis script, with line fillers in burnished gold, red, or blue, with single line versal initials in blue or gold, modern foliation in pencil to the lower margin. The decoration of this leaf appears unfinished, the alternating blue and gold initials lack their pen flourishing.
 
The text contains Psalm 101:7–27. The text on the recto opens: ‘Similis factu[s] su[m] pellicano solitudinis’, (‘Through the voice of my groaning’).
 
This single leaf comes from a Psalter that was listed in 2000 by Les Enluminures with Bruce Ferrini. The manuscript was later dismembered and individual or collections of leaves from the Psalter have come up for sale since.
 
There are debates on the origin of this manuscript, whether it is English or French. England, specifically the north of England, has been attributed on the basis of the style of decoration.
 
A very attractive example of an English manuscript leaf. There is some lightening of the script, some rubbing of the gilt letters and line fillers, particularly to the verso.