BOOK ON WHEELS
HURTADO, Eugenio, scribe.
[Missal for feast days.]
Madrid, 1827.
Manuscript on paper, elephant folio (642 x 480 mm), ff. [2, colophon, index], 27, ‘27–182’ [i.e. 28–183]; neatly written in black ink, in Latin, 11 or 12 lines per page, musical notation on 5-line red-ruled staves, large historiated initial ‘A’ to f. 1r, large initials in multiple inks throughout, smaller initials in red or blue, colophon (‘Lo excribio / en Madrid / Eugenio Hurtado año de 1827’) written within a stencilled border in red, blue, green, and yellow inks; short tear to outer margin of first 2 ff. (not affecting text), longer tear to final leaf, light thumb-marks to a few corners, dampstain to upper margin of a few leaves; bound in contemporary calf over 16-mm wooden boards, tooled in gilt, large brass cornerpieces, the lower pieces incorporating four wheels on the tail-edge, brass corner bosses, large central bosses (renewed), clasps to fore-edge (one lacking, the other partially defective), edges gilt and gauffered, ribbon tabs to fore-edge (mostly defective), neat thumbholes excised from outer margins of most leaves, 2 pierced brass plates fixed to inner boards to support the bookblock (causing some rubbing of the tail-edge), primary endbands sewn with parallel threads around ?rolled-paper cores, sewn with thick thread on 7 supports laced in, spine lined with canvas; a little rubbed at extremities, slight chips to tailcap, but overall very well-preserved.
An extraordinary and enormous liturgical manuscript with painted and stencilled decorations, in a remarkable binding on wheels for ease of movement
Active in Madrid in the first decades of the nineteenth century, Eugenio Hurtado was a music professor, choirbook calligrapher, and seller of brushes and inks, based at 29 Calle de San Roque (Gaceta de Madrid 65, 30 May 1818, p. 540). He received several commissions from the Royal Court, particularly for the Infante Antonio Pascual of Spain (1755–1817), the younger brother of Charles IV of Spain and Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies. He won a silver medal at the Spanish exhibition of 1828 for his stencil templates (‘chapas caladas’), as used here, with ‘alphabets, vignettes, fleurons, friezes, and other ornaments’ (Memoria de la Junta de Calificacion de los productos de la industria española…, 1830, p. 59). Several examples of his work are preserved in the Real Biblioteca in Madrid.
The present manuscript is remarkable both for its enormous size and for the attempts by the binder to accommodate this, most strikingly the incorporation of wheels. Another notable feature of the binding is brass plates affixed to the tail-edge to support the bookblock, as it is too heavy to be kept from collapsing by rounding and backing alone.
This volume weighs approximately 40 kg. Please enquire for shipping quotes.
