Lot 14

Four miniatures on cuttings from illuminated manuscripts on vellum

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

4 miniatures, (a) a large and fine miniature of the Crucifixion, 102mm. by 70mm., with Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St. John, all before a hilly landscape and Jerusalem (here as a late Gothic city with high church spires), slight cockling, small discolouration and a few small holes near to Virgin, else good condition, laid down on card but verso appears blank, in large moulded architectural frame, Ferrara or Padua, c.1460; (b) 2 leaves from a Book of Hours, each approximately 90mm. by 60mm., with three-quarter page miniatures of the Nativity and a burial above 4-line initials with foliate infill on gold grounds, 14 lines of text on verso, somewhat scuffed and smudged, in brown wooden frame together, probably Paris, c.1460; (c) a single leaf from a Psalter, approximately 105mm. by 70mm., with a three-quarter page miniature of King David kneeling in a hilly landscape as God appears in the sky above, 4-line initial as in item above, 17 lines on verso, some slight discolouration to edges, else good, framed as previous item, probably Paris, c.1415

Catalogue Note

Item (a) here is of extremely fine quality and has been attributed to the artist Girolamo da Cremona. He worked as an illuminator in the north Italian courts in the years 1460-83, in collaboration with a number of prominent artists. He first appears alongside Taddeo Crivelli and other artists in Ferrara working on the magnificent Bible of Borso d'Este, executed between 1455 and 1461, and from there he moved on to Mantua where he met and worked with the celebrated court painter Andrea Mantegna (1431-1506). Around 1468 he can be found collaborating with Liberale da Verona illuminating choir books in Siena. By the end of his career Venice had become a major centre of the new technology of printing, and Girolamo moved there to illuminate frontispieces for de luxe copies of incunabula. His single greatest artistic influence was that of Mantegna, and the present miniature with its startlingly realistic fleshtones and vast detailed background is strikingly reminiscent of Mantegna's work, and if this is the hand of Girolamo himself then it must stem from the period under Mantegna's tutelage.

From a private collection in Canada.