- 10
Large historiated initial 'A' on a leaf from a choirbook, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Germany (probably Bavaria, perhaps Donau-Ries), second quarter of the sixteenth century]
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
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Description
- Vellum
a leaf, 473mm. by 345mm., with a large initial 'A' (opening the responsory "Aspiciens a longe ...", for the night office on the first Sunday of Advent), 72mm. by 132mm., in burnished gold heightened with scrolling penwork, enclosing the Last Judgement, Christ seated on the crossbar of the initial as angels blow horns and saints kneel, below them the naked and bedraggled dead rise up from their graves, all enclosed in red and green frame heightened with gold penwork, full border of scrolling acanthus-leaves, flowers and gold fruit, with a bird, an ape eating a red seed, a wildman with a club and a stag's head (the last two affected by trimming: the wildman half missing, and only one antler of the stag's head visible), 2 large initials in red or blue on verso, 7 lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave, very small folds and trimmed with losses to border decoration, else excellent condition, mounted on card
Catalogue Note
The artist is identifiable as a follower of the Bavarian panel painter and illuminator known as the Master of the Munich Saint John on Patmos, fl.1525-30; Les Enluminures cat.14 (Pen to Press, Paint to Print) 2009, pp.95-7. However, the coloured frame around the initial and the borders of this leaf show striking similarities to those in 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 this leaf may well be from that region.