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Details
THE THREE MAGI, on a leaf from a Psalter, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Germany, c.1300]
155 x 120mm (leaf), 112 x 90mm (painted area). Three young magi stand before a ground of burnished gold surrounded by a blue frame with a double fillet border; on the recto 19 lines in a gothic bookhand in brown ink on a brown ruling of two verticals and 20 horizontals, top and bottom three across the margins, text justification: 112 x 90mm, rubrics in red, three two-line initials with staves of blue or red flourished with the contrasting colour (some rubbing and smudging, particularly affecting the head of the left-hand magus). Framed.
A label on the back of the frame identifies the leaf as coming from the collection of the art historian Rosy Kahn-Schilling, Frankfurt/London, and localising its production to Lake Constance. And the young kings do have the smooth porcelain-like complexions characteristic of illumination from this region.
On the verso of the miniature are four Collects. The figures seem likely to show the Three Magi but the fact that they are not bearing gifts suggests that this is not meant to be a narrative representation belonging to a sequence of scenes from the Infancy of Christ but introduced a prayer or devotion to the Magi. In the 12th century the relics of the Magi were brought to Cologne and housed in what is arguably the most splendid of gabled shrine reliquaries. This is still in the Treasury of Cologne cathedral.
[Germany, c.1300]
155 x 120mm (leaf), 112 x 90mm (painted area). Three young magi stand before a ground of burnished gold surrounded by a blue frame with a double fillet border; on the recto 19 lines in a gothic bookhand in brown ink on a brown ruling of two verticals and 20 horizontals, top and bottom three across the margins, text justification: 112 x 90mm, rubrics in red, three two-line initials with staves of blue or red flourished with the contrasting colour (some rubbing and smudging, particularly affecting the head of the left-hand magus). Framed.
A label on the back of the frame identifies the leaf as coming from the collection of the art historian Rosy Kahn-Schilling, Frankfurt/London, and localising its production to Lake Constance. And the young kings do have the smooth porcelain-like complexions characteristic of illumination from this region.
On the verso of the miniature are four Collects. The figures seem likely to show the Three Magi but the fact that they are not bearing gifts suggests that this is not meant to be a narrative representation belonging to a sequence of scenes from the Infancy of Christ but introduced a prayer or devotion to the Magi. In the 12th century the relics of the Magi were brought to Cologne and housed in what is arguably the most splendid of gabled shrine reliquaries. This is still in the Treasury of Cologne cathedral.
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