From Bloomsbury to Sotheby’s: The Destruction and Sale of the De Roucy Hours (and Peter Kidd’s -mssprovenance - Part in It)

The systematic destruction of the De Roucy Hours began in autumn 2009, shortly after the manuscript was sold in its entirety at Bloomsbury New York (lot 15, 4 March 2009). Within six months, the first dismembered leaves were already on the market—offered by Peter Kiefer, a well-known biblioclast based in Germany.

From there, a pattern emerged: Reiss & Sohn auctioned miniatures and text leaves in October 2009; Hartung & Hartung followed suit with multiple sales in November 2009 and June 2012. By 2011, the manuscript’s richly illuminated folia appeared at Sotheby’s London, sometimes described by Peter Kidd, a self-proclaimed manuscript expert known online as mssprovenance.

Kidd documented the dismembered leaves in his blog—presented as academic “tracing”—but in fact also wrote auction entries and maintained contact with private collectors and dealers, benefiting professionally from the manuscript’s destruction.

In her article in Studj Romanzi XVIII, 2022, and in The Book of Hours of Louis de Roucy, Prof. Carla Rossi documented these practices in full detail, identifying the manuscript’s original patron and reconstructing its physical and liturgical structure. The second edition of her book also denounced the broader network behind the trade in dismembered manuscripts—including auction houses, dealers, consultants, and even academics paid to validate and legitimise these acts.

What began with a single auction became a widespread and profitable dismemberment, with over €200,000 in profit from the sale of 31 full-page miniatures alone. Meanwhile, Peter Kidd, hiding behind the neutral appearance of a “provenance researcher”, helped move these objects through the market while avoiding all academic accountability.

#ReceptioGate #Biblioclasm #PeterKidd #mssprovenance #ManuscriptDismemberment #DeRoucyHours #AuctionEthics #ManuscriptTrade #IllicitHeritageTrade #biblioclasm