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Auction archive: Lot number 86

in German, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Alsace, c.1445] 12 leaves, single …

Auction 08.07.2015
8 Jul 2015
Estimate
£60,000 - £80,000
ca. US$93,338 - US$124,451
Price realised:
£60,000
ca. US$93,338
Auction archive: Lot number 86

in German, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Alsace, c.1445] 12 leaves, single …

Auction 08.07.2015
8 Jul 2015
Estimate
£60,000 - £80,000
ca. US$93,338 - US$124,451
Price realised:
£60,000
ca. US$93,338
Beschreibung:

in German, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Alsace, c.1445] 12 leaves, single gathering, set out as medical-astronomical prognostications followed or proceeded by calendar for each month, most probably wanting a last leaf with the prognostications for December, else complete, double column of 32 lines in a fine prickly German vernacular bookhand, with capitals touched in red, 2-line initials in alternate red and muted turquoise-blue, rubrics and major feasts in red, each column of prognostications headed by an elaborate crocketed golden arch containing the sun or the moon (as a man's face wearing a cowl peeking out from a golden crescent) above a half-page depiction of an astronomer looking skyward or seated reading (11 in total), each calendar leaf with the occupation of the month within a large gold-edged roundel (approximately 50mm. in diameter), above a similarly sized portrait of the zodiac symbol for the month (often partly illuminated), slightly trimmed at outer edges (with small loss to edge of three illustrations), small spots and cockling in places, erased inscription (perhaps Early Modern ex libris) on last leaf, else very good condition, 205mm. by 105mm., eighteenth- or nineteenth-century binding of white vellum over stiff pasteboards, with single gilt-fillet and small ducal coronet in centre of front board, rebacked, fitted gilt-tooled leather case This is the long-lost Mckell Medical Almanack from the workshop of the celebrated artist Dietbold Lauber, last recorded and seen exactly sixty years ago, and previously available to scholarship only in black-and-white facsimile Provenance: (1) Commissioned c.1445 by a patron in the diocese of Strasbourg (the Calendar leaves having the local saints, Erhard, Gangolf, Udalric and Lendelinus amongst others), from the workshop of the artist Dietbold Lauber in Alsace. (2) Col. David McCandless Mckell (1881-1962) of Cillicothe, Ohio, fellow of the Morgan Library and an American friend of the Bodleian, who collected medieval manuscripts and children's books. This volume was exhibited in the library of the University of Kentucky in March 1958, accompanied by a published study by Rosy Schilling and a separate black-and-white facsimile. The manuscript itself has not been seen since then. Saurma-Jeltsch published her study in 2001 and likewise Mackert in 2012 without seeing it, and both list it as 'untraced'. Text and Illumination: Variants of the text here enjoyed great popularity in Germany in the fifteenth century both as part of larger works, or as a work in itself (as here) similar to the later so-called shepherd's calendars. In some manuscripts it is followed by short treatises on the planets, human temperaments and other medical matters, but as Schilling observed in 1958 the individual layout here suggests that this text always stood alone. It opens with predictions on what will happen in the year depending on which day of the week the first day of January falls on (if Monday the weather will be extreme and “there will be little honey and much manslaughter”; if a Thursday the weather will be fine, but “there will be little wine”; if a Friday “many will have sore eyes”), and includes entries for January advising against bleeding but advising for drinking strong wine with ginger, for February advising bleeding only through the thumb and to “eat hot food and drink also warm wine”, for March advising to “eat roast meat and often bathe, this is healthy” and to be bled and cupped often, with further months receiving instructions to consume certain medicinal herbs, eat no meat from the feet of animals, abstain from all smoked meats, “not go often to women”, as well as offer predictions about thunder, weather changes or meteorites bringing war and death in their wake. It was clearly a prestigious commission for a wealthy patron, and Schilling identified the artist as a member of the workshop of the artist and publisher Diebold Lauber in Hagenau, Alsace. As she notes, the same ar

Auction archive: Lot number 86
Auction:
Datum:
8 Jul 2015
Auction house:
Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions
16-17 Pall Mall
St James’s
London, SW1Y 5LU
United Kingdom
info@dreweatts.com
+44 (0)20 78398880
Beschreibung:

in German, illuminated manuscript on parchment [Alsace, c.1445] 12 leaves, single gathering, set out as medical-astronomical prognostications followed or proceeded by calendar for each month, most probably wanting a last leaf with the prognostications for December, else complete, double column of 32 lines in a fine prickly German vernacular bookhand, with capitals touched in red, 2-line initials in alternate red and muted turquoise-blue, rubrics and major feasts in red, each column of prognostications headed by an elaborate crocketed golden arch containing the sun or the moon (as a man's face wearing a cowl peeking out from a golden crescent) above a half-page depiction of an astronomer looking skyward or seated reading (11 in total), each calendar leaf with the occupation of the month within a large gold-edged roundel (approximately 50mm. in diameter), above a similarly sized portrait of the zodiac symbol for the month (often partly illuminated), slightly trimmed at outer edges (with small loss to edge of three illustrations), small spots and cockling in places, erased inscription (perhaps Early Modern ex libris) on last leaf, else very good condition, 205mm. by 105mm., eighteenth- or nineteenth-century binding of white vellum over stiff pasteboards, with single gilt-fillet and small ducal coronet in centre of front board, rebacked, fitted gilt-tooled leather case This is the long-lost Mckell Medical Almanack from the workshop of the celebrated artist Dietbold Lauber, last recorded and seen exactly sixty years ago, and previously available to scholarship only in black-and-white facsimile Provenance: (1) Commissioned c.1445 by a patron in the diocese of Strasbourg (the Calendar leaves having the local saints, Erhard, Gangolf, Udalric and Lendelinus amongst others), from the workshop of the artist Dietbold Lauber in Alsace. (2) Col. David McCandless Mckell (1881-1962) of Cillicothe, Ohio, fellow of the Morgan Library and an American friend of the Bodleian, who collected medieval manuscripts and children's books. This volume was exhibited in the library of the University of Kentucky in March 1958, accompanied by a published study by Rosy Schilling and a separate black-and-white facsimile. The manuscript itself has not been seen since then. Saurma-Jeltsch published her study in 2001 and likewise Mackert in 2012 without seeing it, and both list it as 'untraced'. Text and Illumination: Variants of the text here enjoyed great popularity in Germany in the fifteenth century both as part of larger works, or as a work in itself (as here) similar to the later so-called shepherd's calendars. In some manuscripts it is followed by short treatises on the planets, human temperaments and other medical matters, but as Schilling observed in 1958 the individual layout here suggests that this text always stood alone. It opens with predictions on what will happen in the year depending on which day of the week the first day of January falls on (if Monday the weather will be extreme and “there will be little honey and much manslaughter”; if a Thursday the weather will be fine, but “there will be little wine”; if a Friday “many will have sore eyes”), and includes entries for January advising against bleeding but advising for drinking strong wine with ginger, for February advising bleeding only through the thumb and to “eat hot food and drink also warm wine”, for March advising to “eat roast meat and often bathe, this is healthy” and to be bled and cupped often, with further months receiving instructions to consume certain medicinal herbs, eat no meat from the feet of animals, abstain from all smoked meats, “not go often to women”, as well as offer predictions about thunder, weather changes or meteorites bringing war and death in their wake. It was clearly a prestigious commission for a wealthy patron, and Schilling identified the artist as a member of the workshop of the artist and publisher Diebold Lauber in Hagenau, Alsace. As she notes, the same ar

Auction archive: Lot number 86
Auction:
Datum:
8 Jul 2015
Auction house:
Dreweatts & Bloomsbury Auctions
16-17 Pall Mall
St James’s
London, SW1Y 5LU
United Kingdom
info@dreweatts.com
+44 (0)20 78398880
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