MODEL SHEET with four compositions, coloured drawings on vellum. [Southern Germany, late 15th century]

MODEL SHEET with four compositions, coloured drawings on vellum

[southern Germany, late 15th century?]

a single sheet, c. 130 × 200mm, blank on the reverse except for a modern inscription, the front with four separate drawings, but arranged such that they may represent a single composition: at the top the Virgin and Child, half-length, in a heavenly sunburst, the Child blessing, and both of them apparently looking down at a layman who kneels at the lower centre, hat in his hands, facing left, and looking slightly upwards towards St Jerome, who looks back at him, behind the man are St Sebastian tied to a tree and a bishop-saint who gestures towards the man; vertical and horizontal creases not significantly affecting the drawings, one repaired hole in a blank area, some overall wear and thumbing leading to slight pigment loss.

PROVENANCE

1. Carlo ‘Il Capitano’ Prayer (1825–1892), of Milan, soldier and collector of coins and drawings: with his red ink-stamp in the lower left corner (Lugt 2044, with incorrect dates), a number of whose manuscript illuminations were subsequently owned by:
2. Felix (1860–1914) and his brother Juan (1862–1920) Bernasconi, of Mendrisio, near Lugano; by descent to:
3. Maria Elvira Celia Mendez de Bernasconi (1927–2005), of Buenos Aires: inscribed with her name and year 1977 in blue ballpoint on the reverse (as on the other manuscript cuttings and drawings she owned; Lugt 5734); her sale at Christie’s, 24 June 1987, lot 246 (‘German school, late 15th century’); bought by Fogg
4. The Boehlen Collection, MS 1418.

ILLUMINATION

The standing figures are set on three separate patches of green ground, at two different levels, suggesting that they are perhaps to be seen in isolation from one another, but they are also arranged to form a coherent composition: one could imagine that this is a design for, or copy from, an altarpiece in a Hieronymite church, dedicated to a bishop-saint, whose patron was a layman named Sebastian.

The style is not easy to identify with confidence: the 1987 Christie’s attribution to Germany seems correct, but it was later attributed to Italy.