Provenance
The provenance of LJS 101 is well-documented from the beginning of the nineteenth century through to its arrival at its current home at the University of Pennsylvania. There are also several traces of the manuscript’s nineteenth and twentieth century history found in the manuscript itself.
The manuscript first appears in modern records in the inventory of the library of Sir Thomas Phillipps, the prolific English book collector. He acquired it in 1826 from the London bookseller James Tyler. The manuscript is listed as item 2179 in the Phillipps inventory and the listing is confirmed by two marks in the manuscript.
The first is a stamped crest on the inside of the front cover with the inscription “Sir T. P. Middle Hill 2179.” On the first folio is another note stating “2179 MSS Phillipps” and in the same hand “717 in alio catalogo.” The current binding also likely dates from the period when the manuscript was in Phillipps’s collection and it contains a label with his inventory number at the bottom of the spine.
When the Phillipps collection was disbursed, the manuscript went to the bookseller William H. Robinson in 1945 and then to the bookseller H. P. Kraus in 1979. The manuscript was purchased from H. P. Kraus by Helmut Beck. Beck’s embossed label and inventory number are pasted onto the inside of the front cover above the Phillipps crest. Lawrence Schoenberg acquired the manuscript at the sale of Beck’s collection in 1997. LJS 101 was then transferred to the University of Pennsylvania, along with the rest of the Schoenberg Collection, in 2014.