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Auction archive: Lot number 123

The Trinity, leaf from manuscript choirbook [southern Germany, 2nd quarter of the 16th century]

Estimate
£2,000 - £3,000
ca. US$2,525 - US$3,787
Price realised:
n. a.
Auction archive: Lot number 123

The Trinity, leaf from manuscript choirbook [southern Germany, 2nd quarter of the 16th century]

Estimate
£2,000 - £3,000
ca. US$2,525 - US$3,787
Price realised:
n. a.
Beschreibung:

The Trinity, in a historiated initial on a leaf, from an illuminated manuscript choirbook in Latin [southern Germany (probably Bavaria, perhaps Donau-Ries), second quarter of the sixteenth century] Single large leaf, with a large historiated initial 'B' (opening "Benedicat nos deus, deus noster ..." the responsory for Trinity Sunday), in blue with white acanthus leaves overlaid, enclosing God the Father as a crowned and white bearded man, enthroned as he cradles Christ's lifeless body on his lap and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends, two angels in background holding up a green cloth, all within red and green realistic frame and on brightly burnished gold grounds, the gold heightened with yellow paint to pick out foliage, foliate sprays from the edges of the initial sprouting into the margin with coloured acanthus leaves, large gold bezants and gold pendulous fruit, with a green haired wildman with bare knees and elbows hanging from the branches and looking down at a bird in the foliage below, red and blue initials (one with contrasting penwork and two human faces at its side poking out their tongues), red rubrics, 6 lines of text with music on a 5-line red stave (rastrum: 35mm.; the number of staff lines an uncommon feature but not unheard of at the end of the Middle Ages, and not indicating polyphony), slight flaking from ink of main text in places, inkburn causing tiny holes in parchment in some letters and music notes, trimmed at top with losses from border there, slight stains at outer edge from last mounting, small scuffs and folds, else excellent condition, 460 by 345mm. The wildman (or wodewose in Middle English) in the border here, with his realistically bald knees and elbows, is a charming and distinctively Germanic addition to the decoration. These mythical, humanoid creatures were hairy, primitive, unable to control their desires and thought to live in the deep forests or mountains. As noted in the French epic Valentin et Orson , they were unable to speak beyond senseless mumbling, and Chrétien de Troyes has them as skilled hunters, but unable to master fire they ate the meat raw. They fascinated both medieval man as a model for everything man hoped he was not, as well as an object of envy for their simple lives outside the mores of civilised society. For more see R. Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages , 1952, and T. Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism , 1980. Another leaf from the same parent manuscript was sold in Sotheby's, 7 December 2010, lot 10, realising £11,250, and identified as by a follower of the Bavarian panel painter and illuminator known as the Master of the Munich Saint John on Patmos, fl.1525-30 (cf. Les Enluminures cat.14, Pen to Press, Paint to Print , 2009, pp. 95-7). However, the coloured frames around the initial and borders of the leaf show affinity to an antiphoner made in 1531 for the Cistercian house of Kaisheim, in Donau-Ries (E. Hemfort, Monastische Buchkunst zwischen Mittelalter und Renaissance , 2001, p.141), and the parent manuscript may well be from that region.

Auction archive: Lot number 123
Auction:
Datum:
8 Jul 2020
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:

The Trinity, in a historiated initial on a leaf, from an illuminated manuscript choirbook in Latin [southern Germany (probably Bavaria, perhaps Donau-Ries), second quarter of the sixteenth century] Single large leaf, with a large historiated initial 'B' (opening "Benedicat nos deus, deus noster ..." the responsory for Trinity Sunday), in blue with white acanthus leaves overlaid, enclosing God the Father as a crowned and white bearded man, enthroned as he cradles Christ's lifeless body on his lap and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove descends, two angels in background holding up a green cloth, all within red and green realistic frame and on brightly burnished gold grounds, the gold heightened with yellow paint to pick out foliage, foliate sprays from the edges of the initial sprouting into the margin with coloured acanthus leaves, large gold bezants and gold pendulous fruit, with a green haired wildman with bare knees and elbows hanging from the branches and looking down at a bird in the foliage below, red and blue initials (one with contrasting penwork and two human faces at its side poking out their tongues), red rubrics, 6 lines of text with music on a 5-line red stave (rastrum: 35mm.; the number of staff lines an uncommon feature but not unheard of at the end of the Middle Ages, and not indicating polyphony), slight flaking from ink of main text in places, inkburn causing tiny holes in parchment in some letters and music notes, trimmed at top with losses from border there, slight stains at outer edge from last mounting, small scuffs and folds, else excellent condition, 460 by 345mm. The wildman (or wodewose in Middle English) in the border here, with his realistically bald knees and elbows, is a charming and distinctively Germanic addition to the decoration. These mythical, humanoid creatures were hairy, primitive, unable to control their desires and thought to live in the deep forests or mountains. As noted in the French epic Valentin et Orson , they were unable to speak beyond senseless mumbling, and Chrétien de Troyes has them as skilled hunters, but unable to master fire they ate the meat raw. They fascinated both medieval man as a model for everything man hoped he was not, as well as an object of envy for their simple lives outside the mores of civilised society. For more see R. Bernheimer, Wild Men in the Middle Ages , 1952, and T. Husband, The Wild Man: Medieval Myth and Symbolism , 1980. Another leaf from the same parent manuscript was sold in Sotheby's, 7 December 2010, lot 10, realising £11,250, and identified as by a follower of the Bavarian panel painter and illuminator known as the Master of the Munich Saint John on Patmos, fl.1525-30 (cf. Les Enluminures cat.14, Pen to Press, Paint to Print , 2009, pp. 95-7). However, the coloured frames around the initial and borders of the leaf show affinity to an antiphoner made in 1531 for the Cistercian house of Kaisheim, in Donau-Ries (E. Hemfort, Monastische Buchkunst zwischen Mittelalter und Renaissance , 2001, p.141), and the parent manuscript may well be from that region.

Auction archive: Lot number 123
Auction:
Datum:
8 Jul 2020
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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