Beautifully well-executed hand-painted replica on vellum of one of the earliest images of golf. This is truly one of golf’s most treasured and rarest historical works of art. Shows a golfing scene of four men playing golf in front of a house. Book of Hours calendar for the month of September, lettered in red and black and Scorpio lettered and pictured in right side decorations. Decorative margins in various shades of gold and blue. States on the brown paper backing in ink: “From the Flemish Book of Hours, Ci. 1530, hand painted from copy in the British Museum by artist Martin Frost. This copy is #2 of 3.” Also, a printed paper label on verso: “R. Fours Davis, Golf Collection…Sun City, Arizona…”. Measures 8½x6½" matted and framed (14x12" overall).
Includes photocopied sheet with card-backing showing an image of the original leaf and containing background information on the original work of art: “This most historical page from a Flemish book of Hours was executed between 1500-1520 by Simon Bennink, a renown artist during the time of Queen Katherine. At the foot of the calendar devoted to the month of September is a miniature which by its roughness, compared to Bennink’s own work, is suggestively the effort of a pupil. It is the closest resemblance of golf as played in Scotland during this period. Furthermore, it is one of the earliest paintings in Holland which actually depicts golf clubs, balls and a hole. The game is also being played on ground, not ice. This book of Hours, bought from Ernest, Baron de Polnitz of Schloss Babenwohl, Bregenz, on April 13, 1861, and known as “The Golf Book” in the British Museum, consists of thirty vellum folios bound in book form. This miniature has been reproduced in several books on golf, but without stress on a significance that is surely arresting; i.e., golf in the same, if primitive, form as used today, depicted at the time, the early sixteenth century. (Sir Guy Campbell, ‘History of Golf in Britain.’ Shenval Press, 1952).” An extremely rare piece, despite being a modern reproduction, which requires special permission to handle the original, this example is nicely done by a careful hand by a truly gifted artist. An original, if ever made available to the public, would likely sell in the hundreds of thousands of dollars.