Beschreibung:

THE TRINITY AND THE VIRGIN MARY WITH THE COMPANY OF SAINTS. Leaf from an ILLUMINATED BOOK OF HOURS ON VELLUM. [England, second half of the 14th century] 195 x 130mm. Full-page miniature (160 x 90mm) divided into two registers: in the upper, God the Father and the Virgin enthroned with Christ on the cross and the dove of the Holy Spirit, all against a burnished gold background in a red mandorla, flanked by the company of saints, the faces articulated, with liquid gold halos, the figures in the foreground clothed in pink, blue, black, and red; in the lower register an elaborate tesselated pattern in burnished gold, pink, and blue with white tracery, the whole within a rectangular frame of burnished gold and blue with white tracery, with extensions of ivy leaves on black hairline stems; in the corners four coats of arms: (1) sable a lion passant gardant argent armed gules and in chief or four lozenges, (2) gules , (3) argent a cross gules , and (4) argent a lion rampant erminite between three crosses fitchy sable . (Some abrasion and loss of gold, the argent and gules oxidized and darkened; not examined out of frame.) Framed and glazed. ILLUMINATION AND TEXT: This miniature of the Trinity and the Virgin with the company of saints was probably intended to accompany a suffrage addressed to All Saints, and came from the same manuscript as the following lot; see that entry for a full discussion of the provenance and illumination.