Beschreibung:

THE LAST JUDGEMENT, historiated initial 'A' on a leaf from an Antiphonal on vellum illuminated by Nikolaus Bertschi [Augsburg, first quarter 16th century] An evocative and dramatic portrayal of the Last Judgement illuminated by the prolific Swiss artist Nikolaus Bertschi. 473 x 345mm., large initial 'A' within a full border, opening the responsory 'Aspiciens a longe [...]', for the night office on the first Sunday of Advent, 7 lines of text and music on a 5-line stave, verso with 2 large initials in red or blue (borders a little trimmed, especially affecting the wildman with a club and the stag's head in the right margin). Provenance : A sister leaf with an initial 'A' and the Resurrection is in a private collection in Amsterdam (a black and white image dating from the 1970s shows similar cropping to our leaf: see www.bildindex.de/document/obj20719239. (2) Sotheby's, 7 December 2010, lot 10. Previously attributed a follower of the Bavarian panel painter and illuminator known as the Master of the Munich Saint John on Patmos, the illumination is actually the work of the Swiss artist Nikolaus Bertschi, born in Rorschach am Bodensee, and active in Augsburg from around 1510 until his death in c.1541. A significant corpus of works has been attributed to the artist (see Ulrich Merkl, Buchmalerei in Bayern , 1999. 41-48, pp.273-314). A direct comparable is a Gradual (also with music on a 5-line stave) commissioned by Prince-Abbot Franz Gaisberg (1504–1529) and now St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 1767.