Beschreibung:

ST LUKE THE EVANGELIST, miniature on a leaf from the LLANGATTOCK BREVIARY, in Latin, an ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM. [Ferrara, mid-15th century] Miniature: 30 x 28mm; leaf 268 x 198mm. Two columns of 30 lines written in brown ink in a gothic bookhand, rubrics in red, nine two-line initials of burnished gold on grounds alternately of blue and pale pink with white filigree decoration, 4 FULL-LENGTH ILLUMINATED BORDERS, three with bars of burnished gold with terminal or marginal sprays of scrolling penwork tendrils supporting foliage, flowers and golden disks, and one of interlaced tendrils surrounding flowers and foliage, all interspersed with gold disks, the five-line MINIATURE against a ground of burnished gold shows the Evangelist, dressed in an orange mantle lined with blue, seated on a green bench holding a book in one hand and his portrait of the Virgin and Child in the other, Luke's cow peeps round the bench (slight abrasion to some of the gold, an L-shaped cut in the upper part of the right-hand column of text and a small area of pigment loss in the miniature at the base of the bench). Framed and glazed. This leaf comes from a manuscript that was sold in our rooms (8 December 1958, lot 190) as part of the estate of the 2nd Baron Llangattock. Many miniatures had already been removed (presumably causing the L-shaped cut on this folio) and after the sale the remaining leaves were separated and dispersed. All aspects of the manuscript -- size, format and illumination -- correspond to those of the Missal of Borso d'Este, Marquis and then Duke of Ferrara (Modena, Biblioteca Estense Ms α W.5.2, Lat. 239), and the Breviary was certainly made either for him or his predecessor Leonello and intended, like the Missal, for use in the ruler's chapel. Borso d'Este was one of the great Renaissance bibliophile princes and the d'Este archives contain records of many payments for illuminating manuscripts. Perhaps those most likely to be relevant to the present leaf were made between 1456 and 1469 to Guglielmo Giraldi and Giorgio d'Allemagna for their work on a Breviary. Giorgio d'Allemagna has recently been accepted as being the artist otherwise known as the Master of the Missal of Borso d'Este because of his predominant role in that book. The miniature of St Luke on the present leaf can confidently be attributed to him -- "one of the principal miniaturists who was active at the Court of Ferrara" -- and, with the inclusion of the portrait of the Virgin and Child, it is a charming example of his elegant, refined style.