![]() This leaf is from the central text of the Book of Hours, the "Little Office of the Blessed Virgin" (or Hours of the Virgin), which was modelled on the Divine Office and represents a shorter version of the devotions performed at the eight canonical hours of the day. A beautifully illuminated leaf from a luxurious fifteenth-century French Book of Hours. Illuminated leaf, 215 x 139 mm., with a panel border on both sides of the leaf composed of blue and gold acanthus and coloured flowers and leaves on shaped grounds of liquid gold, three 2-line initials in pink with white tracery, naturalistic branch line fillers, 24 lines of text in gothic script. The contemporary hand that colored this leaf took great care to preserve these details and, through the use of a consistent and harmonious color palette of orange and light blue highlighted with gold, creates a cohesive and visually pleasing family tree. ![]() The 12 generations shown in the present miniature are highly individualized, each with its own garb, expression, and posture. ![]() ![]() Though the Tree can show as many as 43 generations following Jesse, the number of figures is often truncated, as here, due to the spatial constraints of the picture plane. The lines immediately below the miniature, from Isaiah 11:1, help to explain some of the iconography: "Et egredietur virga de radice Jesse, et flos de radice ejus ascendet." According to biblical tradition, the "root" here is Jesse, the "rod" ("virga" in Latin) is understood to be the Virgin Mary, and the "flower" is Christ Himself. The subject depicted here is the Tree of Jesse, showing the lineage of Christ and demonstrating His royal descent from Jesse of Bethlehem (the father of King David), down to the Virgin Mary. This is an attractive example of a printed leaf with contemporary hand coloring, richly hued and with fine attention to detail. Gold architectural border a bit tarnished (darkening most of the uncolored metalcut border on verso), tiny losses in the blue painted background, other minor imperfections, but on the whole an excellent specimen, the main part of the skillfully painted miniature vibrant and still very well preserved. Verso with one- and two-line initials painted gold on a pink or blue ground and a full metalcut border featuring several roundels with scenes from the life of Christ, recto with A FULL-PAGE METALCUT MINIATURE, BEAUTIFULLY COLORED BY A CONTEMPORARY HAND, depicting the large, reclining figure of Jesse at the bottom of the image, a green, branching tree emerging from his chest, each branch holding a smaller figure representing the lineage of Christ (12 figures in total), and at the very top a golden medallion rimmed with orange, emitting gold rays and containing the image of the Virgin and Child, all this on a deep blue ground dotted with gold, and surrounded by an architectural frame painted gold. Provenance: From the collection of Roger Martin (1939-2020).ΔΆ45 x 170 mm. Some wear to gold and colour, remnants of adhesive to outer margin, slight browning of lower margin of recto, otherwise very good condition. On the verso is the figure of a man, kneeling and almost smiling, in blue robes with red hat, pointing upwards to the text. An attractive leaf from an early Book of Hours in Latin, with psalm 92 starting at the first large initial on the recto ('Dominus regnavit decorum indutus est.'), followed by Psalm 99 ('Jubilate deo omnis terra.'), indicating that it is an extract from Lauds, from the Use of Coutances, a diocese in Normandy. Two, two-line and several one-line initials on blue and red grounds in gold, the larger enclosing coloured foliage on gold grounds, rubricated in red with line fillers and bar down left-hand-side of text column in matching colours, ending in sprays of acanthus leaves, flowers with spiked stamens, borders of foliage and fruit, verso with figure of kneeling man in blue robes with a red hat, pointing upwards, to the text.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |