Walters Ms. W.313, Compilation of Rhymed Proverbs: Proverbs en rimes Proverbs en rimes 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 The Walters Art Museum

Licensed for use under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported Access Rights, http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode. It is requested that copies of any published articles based on the information in this data set be sent to the curator of manuscripts, The Walters Art Museum, 600 North Charles Street, Baltimore MD 21201.

 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. Baltimore The Walters Art Museum W.313 The primary language in this manuscript is French, Middle (ca.1400-1600). 1r - 91v Proverbs en rimes

Antique laid paper, medium-weight, moderate brown staining and worm holes; recurring watermark, usually truncated at spine edge, a male head in profile with flowing hair and a thin line ending in a star extending from the top of the head

 Foliation: iii+91+iii19.9 13.1 Two sets of foliations, the first entered ca. 1900 on the lower right of rectos (fols. 1-71, 73-86, 81, 72, 87-91), the second (used here) entered ca. 1940 by Walters staff in upper right corners of rectos, and begins after fol. 71 to reflect current binding order; two leaves separated from this manuscript are now in the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan in Paris; a third separated leaf (fol.add.1) was purchased by the Walters in the 1990s; flyleaves likely added by Léon Gruel in the nineteenth or twentieth century; watermark on front and back flyleaves, small heart flanked by "A" and "R" in an oblong outline; front flyleaf i,r and back flyleaf iii,v covered with crimson silk

Due to tight binding, collation formula is unavailable

Written surface and lines varies from page to page 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) Book has 182 pen drawings, with two additional images on separate leaf, in brown ink by three artists, shaded in fine hatching and occasional use of wash (fol. 3v), sparse use of red (fols. 14r and 55r) and green (fol. 79r); underdrawing in lead visible on several folios (e.g. fols. 31r, 60v, 71r); though executed in a simple fashion, the figures show animated facial expressions and gestures, and a variety of detailed interior and exterior scenes are used as backgrounds; two leaves separated from this manuscript are now in the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan in Paris, a third separated leaf (fol.add.1) was purchased by the Walters Art Museum in the 1990s "When I keep most quiet, I am seen by one who gives no good counsel" Half-page miniature "To buy a pig in a poke" Half-page miniature "In the kingdom of the blind the one-eyed man is king" Half-page miniature "God is at the lending" Half-page miniature "The Devil is at the paying" Half-page miniature "If you wrestle with a collier, you will get a blotch" Half-page miniature "The big dog with the great collar" Half-page miniature "By shaving a fool one learns to shave" Half-page miniature "He who dares not cry out is beaten" Half-page miniature "Light gains make heavy purses" Half-page miniature "One hand washes the other" Half-page miniature "No flying without wings" Half-page miniature "You should not hang your cloak on a broken peg" Half-page miniature "You cannot hide behind a finger" Half-page miniature "The colt that does not break his halter is worth nothing" Half-page miniature "He that grasps at too much can hold on to little" Half-page miniature "He plants needles to grow bars" Half-page miniature "There is none so humpbacked in the parish that he cannot find a humpbacked wife" Half-page miniature "What the eye cannot see, the heart cannot regret" Half-page miniature "Link by link the coat of mail is finished at last" Half-page miniature "While the dog relieves himself, the wolf escapes to the woods" Half-page miniature "He sees two gods in one Mass" Half-page miniature "To bring a florin to nine groats" Half-page miniature "He cuts the stick with which he is beaten" Half-page miniature "A man must keep one eye on the woods and the other on the town" Half-page miniature "Brother Martin can sing only from his book" Half-page miniature "Once a woman's brow is broken, she becomes a wanton" Half-page miniature "Who speaks of the wolf finds him at the door" Half-page miniature "Largesse is stingy only toward man" Half-page miniature "An oven and a mill are nurseries of news" Half-page miniature "He is wise who is always on guard, for an enemy never sleeps" Half-page miniature "Embrace a churl and he will prick you" Half-page miniature "Prick a churl and he will embrace you" Half-page miniature "Don't look a gift horse in the mouth" Half-page miniature "Sick man, would you have health?" Half-page miniature "The more the mud is stirred, the more it will stink" Half-page miniature "The pitcher goes so often to the river that it is broken at last" Half-page miniature "I have no friend but my purse" Half-page miniature "He that reckons without his host must reckon twice" Half-page miniature "The gosling is unworthy to show the goose where to pasture" Half-page miniature "Goslings lead the goose to grass" Half-page miniature "After death the doctor is of no use" Half-page miniature "A sea voyage will teach you how to pray" Half-page miniature "He would bite the hand of a little child" Half-page miniature "Still waters run deep" Half-page miniature "An old cat does not need to have a straw dragged before it" Half-page miniature "Between two friends the spade is lost" Half-page miniature "Who keeps company with the wolf must learn to howl" Half-page miniature "A friend in need is a friend indeed" Half-page miniature "Who lives, sees" Half-page miniature "The caterpillar lives on the cabbage and the wise man on the fool" Half-page miniature "He who has a ready tongue will get to Rome" Half-page miniature "He ill conceals himself that shows his back" Half-page miniature "A handful of nobility is worth six pennies a year" Half-page miniature "He reaches with both hands and chews with both jaws" Half-page miniature "His vain and idle words are flutes in verjuice" Half-page miniature "A mighty knave will have a mighty fall" Half-page miniature "The Lombards' petitions for grace after meals consist of three dice on the table" Half-page miniature "To agree like cat and dog" Half-page miniature "He who has no ox lives from day to day" Half-page miniature "Piteous mothers make scurvy-ridden children" Half-page miniature "The face of a man has great power" Half-page miniature "After the feast the fool remains" Half-page miniature "There are all sorts of people in the world" Half-page miniature "It thunders until at last it rains" Half-page miniature "A prophet is not without honor save in his own country" Half-page miniature "He who makes crosetz makes lasaigne" Half-page miniature "A fool needs no bell" Half-page miniature "He is sure of a cat that has her skin" Half-page miniature "Too much urging makes a horse restive" Half-page miniature "Even the best singing can be too much" Half-page miniature "He's a poor guardian of honey who does not lick his own fingers" Half-page miniature "Large fish are not caught in small streams" Half-page miniature "There is no ascent so great but that the descent is equally so" Half-page miniature "All things are at length discovered in raking" Half-page miniature "He plucks out good herbs and plants bad" Half-page miniature "The wolf knows what the evil beast thinks" Half-page miniature "He who kicks against a prick deserves to be twice hurt" Half-page miniature "Who loves God loves his saints" Half-page miniature "It is wise not to live too high because of the crows, nor too low because of the foxes" Half-page miniature "A small pack is fit for a small peddler" Half-page miniature "Little by little the ox may catch the hare" Half-page miniature "He lives so wisely that he does not gamble, drink, nor give pledges, and yet some other misfortune overtakes him" Half-page miniature "Great clamor destroys the castle" Half-page miniature "The greedy man loves the wedding feast better than the bride" Half-page miniature "The knife should be chosen according to the meat" Half-page miniature "It is too late for the rat to repent when the cat has got it by the tail" Half-page miniature "No dog wants another dog in the kitchen" Half-page miniature "A rolling stone gathers no moss" Half-page miniature "God helps those who help themselves" Half-page miniature "All that glitters is not gold" Half-page miniature "Greedy folk do not care what they spend on their food" Half-page miniature "Ease makes the thief" Half-page miniature "All can be lost through carelessness" Half-page miniature "The cat would like to eat fish but will not get her feet wet" Half-page miniature "Who goes to Rome a fool returns a fool" Half-page miniature "If it has a beak, call it a sickle" Half-page miniature "There is a remedy for all things but death" Half-page miniature "Dress up a bush and it will seem a baron" Half-page miniature "A deaf man has no need for two Masses" Half-page miniature "A friend is better than money in the chest" Half-page miniature "He beats the bush while the others catch the birds" Half-page miniature "You cannot make a sparrow hawk of a buzzard" Half-page miniature "He eats cabbage with a spoon" Half-page miniature "He makes broth in a basket" Half-page miniature "The love of a great man is like the shadow of a bush" Half-page miniature "All rivers run to the sea" Half-page miniature "The mortar always smells of garlic" Half-page miniature "Strike while the iron is hot" Half-page miniature "Patience conquers great anger" Half-page miniature "He can pick new spoons out of an old house" Half-page miniature "Dame Loyalty sleeps and Truth is dead" Half-page miniature "Faith breaks the neck of him who bears her" Half-page miniature "Who washes an ass's head loses both labor and soap" Half-page miniature "He needs to have his ear pulled" Half-page miniature "He who has a bad neighbor has a bad morrow" Half-page miniature "Who turns the spit never tastes a morsel" Half-page miniature "He heats himself in his armor" Half-page miniature "Love lasts as long as the money holds out" Half-page miniature "Crooked loaves are made in the oven" Half-page miniature "In the oven of a lazy baker the dough freezes" Half-page miniature "Who would not resemble the wolf must not wear his hide" Half-page miniature "He ill protects himself who makes a coverlet of balls of yarn" Half-page miniature "It is well to beware of fools and children for they tell what they hear" Half-page miniature "Each priest praises his own relics" Half-page miniature "Go to the seashore to find your peer" Half-page miniature "A man wastes his worldly goods by seeking St. Peter at Rome and ignoring his presence at his door" Half-page miniature "He is not so much the devil as he is black" Half-page miniature "Finding a long tail on a false fox" Half-page miniature "Necessity is the mother of invention" Half-page miniature "Of a little take a little, of a mickle take a mickle" Half-page miniature "He carries fire in one hand and water in the other" Half-page miniature "He puts at his feet what he holds in his hands" Half-page miniature "Falling between two stools" Half-page miniature "Let sleeping dogs lie" Half-page miniature "If you carry a large bag, I carry the measure" Half-page miniature "I must make arrows of such wood as I have" Half-page miniature "He winnows his corn in the wind" Half-page miniature "A churl should have a churl's fare" Half-page miniature "An enterprising fool needs no wit" Half-page miniature "He leaps from cock to ass" Half-page miniature "A poor man supping cannot reach from one loaf to another" Half-page miniature "For want of a wise man, a fool is put in the pulpit" Half-page miniature "An ass finds nothing to eat in the hay-rack except thistles" Half-page miniature "The ass was beaten for performing another's task" Half-page miniature "He puts a stone before the scythe" Half-page miniature "To hunt a hare with a tabor (drum)" Half-page miniature "He who labors for another labors for himself" Half-page miniature "The wolf eats counted sheep" Half-page miniature "Let him that has no money in his purse have money in his mouth" Half-page miniature "It is useless to send a fool on an errand" Half-page miniature "It is good to have two strings to one's bow" Half-page miniature "There's many a slip between cup and lip" Half-page miniature "Who drives an ass and leads a whore hath toil and sorrow evermore" Half-page miniature "To beat the dog before the lion" Half-page miniature "The fool must have his club" Half-page miniature "He eats his grain in the blade" Half-page miniature "Such a cat is not to be caught without mittens" Half-page miniature "When there's a will there's a way" Half-page miniature "Sated pigeons find cherries bitter" Half-page miniature "From ill came the lamb, and to ill goes its skin" Half-page miniature "Men take oats or straw from debtors who are poor" Half-page miniature "The goat scratches the ground so much that it falls ill" Half-page miniature "He is called a rich pinart [selfish, unfriendly person]" Half-page miniature "Who has leisure makes a basket" Half-page miniature "The mule resembles its father" Half-page miniature "Carrying off either the foot or the wing of a bird" Half-page miniature "Let another take the snake from the bush" Half-page miniature "A man's esteem depends on his land" Half-page miniature "Coins that do not ring are found to be best" Half-page miniature "He is made to count the pegs" Half-page miniature "The house shows its owner" Half-page miniature "One knows a workman by his work" Half-page miniature "He sometimes laughs who bites" Half-page miniature "He that makes himself a sheep shall be eaten by the wolf" Half-page miniature "A foolish abbot runs a foolish ménage" Half-page miniature "Who cannot grind at one mill must go to another" Half-page miniature "If the shoe fits, wear it" Half-page miniature "To shoe the goose" Half-page miniature "He steps back in order to leap higher" Half-page miniature "Trickery turns upon its master" Half-page miniature "The sluggard loves to be done with his work" Half-page miniature "One must not cast pearls before swine" Half-page miniature

The word "marguerites" in Middle French meant both "pearls" and "daisies"

 "A good wine needs no praise, and a poor one is not improved because of it" Half-page miniature

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

 Ca. 1475-1500 CE Savoy, France 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 Relevant Works 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. 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