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Details
NATIVITY, in a letter H cut from an Antiphonal, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[?Tuscany, c.1460]
222 x 251mm visible in frame. The initial for the antiphon for vespers on Christmas Day Hodie Christus natus est, on a ground of burnished gold with staves of pink patterned with darker pink and white entwined with acanthus in blue and green with touches of red, incorporating a face within a lobed lozenge, an inner frame of beige to the upper three sides. The Virgin, a shepherd and the ox kneel, while the dejected ass fails to recognise the Christ Child, who lies on the ground before the stable with the Dove hovering above. Joseph, seated beside Him, rests his hand and head on his staff. In the extensive landscape, a shepherd plays the bagpipes to his sheep, two enormous ducks fly over hills, topped with pink towers, and four ships are at anchor in a sea enclosed by a mountainous horizon (small smudge in sky, a few small losses from gold ground, trimmed into framing of gold at left edge, other edges under frame). Framed.
It must have been an enormous and splendid choirbook to contain initials as large and as extensively gilt as this. Several features suggest a Tuscan origin. The Nativity group shows the influence of Florentine models originated by Filippo Lippi but a Florentine painter is unlikely to have so flouted perspective in the enchanting landscape. The ruling seems to have encouraged the illuminator to divide the field horizontally: both front and side of the stable roof are on one horizontal and the gable, on a parallel, is reinforced by bristling trees, which continue the line to the left edge. The greater finesse of the foreground figures is matched by the elaborate patterning of the letter staves. The inclusion of the grotesque head might indicate a Sienese connection -- especially common in the intial staves of Pellegrino da Mariano -- although Sienese illuminators favoured a strong yellow for the inner framing that is a characteristic of Tuscan initials. The colours -- blues, pinks and greens, with red accents -- are carefully integrated throughout the initial and its historiation. The light tonalities and decorative forms show some connection with Choirbooks made for the convent of San Francesco in Lucca (Lucca, Bibl. stat. Mss 2673 and 2676, see M. Paoli, I corali della Biblioteca statale di Lucca, 1957).
[?Tuscany, c.1460]
222 x 251mm visible in frame. The initial for the antiphon for vespers on Christmas Day Hodie Christus natus est, on a ground of burnished gold with staves of pink patterned with darker pink and white entwined with acanthus in blue and green with touches of red, incorporating a face within a lobed lozenge, an inner frame of beige to the upper three sides. The Virgin, a shepherd and the ox kneel, while the dejected ass fails to recognise the Christ Child, who lies on the ground before the stable with the Dove hovering above. Joseph, seated beside Him, rests his hand and head on his staff. In the extensive landscape, a shepherd plays the bagpipes to his sheep, two enormous ducks fly over hills, topped with pink towers, and four ships are at anchor in a sea enclosed by a mountainous horizon (small smudge in sky, a few small losses from gold ground, trimmed into framing of gold at left edge, other edges under frame). Framed.
It must have been an enormous and splendid choirbook to contain initials as large and as extensively gilt as this. Several features suggest a Tuscan origin. The Nativity group shows the influence of Florentine models originated by Filippo Lippi but a Florentine painter is unlikely to have so flouted perspective in the enchanting landscape. The ruling seems to have encouraged the illuminator to divide the field horizontally: both front and side of the stable roof are on one horizontal and the gable, on a parallel, is reinforced by bristling trees, which continue the line to the left edge. The greater finesse of the foreground figures is matched by the elaborate patterning of the letter staves. The inclusion of the grotesque head might indicate a Sienese connection -- especially common in the intial staves of Pellegrino da Mariano -- although Sienese illuminators favoured a strong yellow for the inner framing that is a characteristic of Tuscan initials. The colours -- blues, pinks and greens, with red accents -- are carefully integrated throughout the initial and its historiation. The light tonalities and decorative forms show some connection with Choirbooks made for the convent of San Francesco in Lucca (Lucca, Bibl. stat. Mss 2673 and 2676, see M. Paoli, I corali della Biblioteca statale di Lucca, 1957).
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