ST AUGUSTINE, La Cité de Dieu , in French and Latin, a leaf with two miniatures, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [?France, 19th century] 330 x 245mm (visible area). On the 'recto' a full-page compartmentalised miniature with ivy-leaf sprays in burnished gold into the margins and a running heading in Latin; on the 'verso' , a half-page miniature with sprays of ivy-leaves in colour and burnished gold into the margins, a large illuminated initial and a bas-de-page around two columns of 10 lines in a 'gothic' bookhand on a ruling of red. Framed. These two miniatures are based on those of a copy in Paris of Raoul de Presles' translation of St Augustine's Civitate Dei (BnF, mss fr. 22912-3). Presles undertook the translation at the command of Charles V, working on it from 1371 to 1375. The BnF manuscript, illuminated by artists working for the French king, is likely to have been one of the two two-volume copies recorded in the 1380 inventory of the library of the Louvre: see F. Avril and J. Lafaurie, La Librairie de Charles V (exhib. cat: Paris, 1968), 102 no. 177, pls. 3, 20. The present leaf, presumably a product of the 19th-century revival of interest in manuscript illumination, reproduces the frontispiece of the Charles V manuscript and the opening of Book IX, the discussion between Augustine, Apuleius and Plotinus on angels and demons and the temptations of Satan. Whereas the overall composition of the frontispiece is faithfully copied, the framing has been completely modified: rather than simple rectilinear divisions, the individual scenes are placed into interlocking quatrefoils. The other marked divergence from the original is in the colour -- the manuscript is executed in grisaille on coloured grounds. This may indicate that the source the painter used was a black and white reproduction. By introducing the rich colours and the gleaming gold borders, borrowed from early 15th-century illumination, the painter created a reflection of the Middle Ages in keeping with the romanticised attitudes of the Gothic revival. Both piety and new aesthetic sensibilities could be satisfied by this reinvention of one of Charles V's most splendid manuscripts.
ST AUGUSTINE, La Cité de Dieu , in French and Latin, a leaf with two miniatures, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [?France, 19th century] 330 x 245mm (visible area). On the 'recto' a full-page compartmentalised miniature with ivy-leaf sprays in burnished gold into the margins and a running heading in Latin; on the 'verso' , a half-page miniature with sprays of ivy-leaves in colour and burnished gold into the margins, a large illuminated initial and a bas-de-page around two columns of 10 lines in a 'gothic' bookhand on a ruling of red. Framed. These two miniatures are based on those of a copy in Paris of Raoul de Presles' translation of St Augustine's Civitate Dei (BnF, mss fr. 22912-3). Presles undertook the translation at the command of Charles V, working on it from 1371 to 1375. The BnF manuscript, illuminated by artists working for the French king, is likely to have been one of the two two-volume copies recorded in the 1380 inventory of the library of the Louvre: see F. Avril and J. Lafaurie, La Librairie de Charles V (exhib. cat: Paris, 1968), 102 no. 177, pls. 3, 20. The present leaf, presumably a product of the 19th-century revival of interest in manuscript illumination, reproduces the frontispiece of the Charles V manuscript and the opening of Book IX, the discussion between Augustine, Apuleius and Plotinus on angels and demons and the temptations of Satan. Whereas the overall composition of the frontispiece is faithfully copied, the framing has been completely modified: rather than simple rectilinear divisions, the individual scenes are placed into interlocking quatrefoils. The other marked divergence from the original is in the colour -- the manuscript is executed in grisaille on coloured grounds. This may indicate that the source the painter used was a black and white reproduction. By introducing the rich colours and the gleaming gold borders, borrowed from early 15th-century illumination, the painter created a reflection of the Middle Ages in keeping with the romanticised attitudes of the Gothic revival. Both piety and new aesthetic sensibilities could be satisfied by this reinvention of one of Charles V's most splendid manuscripts.
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.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
.jpg "Source: Christie's")
