![PSALTER OF THE VIRGIN, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Lower Rhineland, c.1490]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2006/CKS/2006_CKS_07275_0018_000(010408).jpg?w=1)
Details
PSALTER OF THE VIRGIN, in Latin, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM [Lower Rhineland, c.1490]
120 x 90mm. 100 leaves: 1-88, 94, 10-138, COMPLETE, 15 lines written in a gothic bookhand between two paired verticals and 16 horizontals ruled in red, 1st and 3rd, 14th and 16th across margins, justification: 80 x 48mm, rubrics in red, text capitals touched red, paragraph marks and one- to three- line initials alternately in red and blue, many flourished in the contrasting colour, one gold initial flourished into the margin with gold and penwork including a face, SEVEN LARGE INITIALS IN BURNISHED GOLD AND COLOURS, one with a grotesque mask, leading to SEVEN BORDERS OF BURNISHED GOLD SPRAYS linking fruit and flowers, ONE LARGE INITIAL IN BLUE ON A GOLD PATTERNED GROUND WITH FULL BORDER of scrolling acanthus and gold sprays with strawberries (slightly cropped into some borders at top and side). 17th-century black goatskin gilt, gilt turn-ins (slightly scuffed).
PROVENANCE:
The Latin rubrics suggest that it was written for a clerical devotee of the Virgin, while the decoration indicates an origin in the Lower Rhineland, possibly Cologne. Soon afterwards, a cursive German hand added a prayer to St Sebastian, f.100v.
A 20th-century hand itemised the decoration in German on the final endleaf.
CONTENT AND ILLUMINATION:
Psalter of the Virgin, attributed to St Bonaventura (1221-1275), ff.1-100v: Prologue ff.1-6; Psalter ff.7-89v; Litany of the Virgin ff.89v-96v; Te matrem dei laudamus ff.96v-100v.
The Psalter of the Virgin epitomises the exaltation of Mary, the Mother of God, which became an ever more important element in later mediaeval piety. The author, traditionally St Bonaventura (1221-1274), the Franciscan famed for his Marian devotion, rewrote the psalms and canticles to direct their praise and petitions to the Virgin, sometimes by a simple change of words, such as substituting 'Lady' for 'Lord', or by minimal insertions, so that the Te deum becomes 'We praise thee, O Mother of God'. Other cases required more substantial modifications. Numerous printed editions across Europe, among them one in Ulm in 1492, demonstrate the popularity of the work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this carefully crafted manuscript, the seven divisions of the psalter for recitation on the different days of the week are marked by richly gilded and coloured decoration, honouring the Virgin through both text and illumination.
120 x 90mm. 100 leaves: 1-8
PROVENANCE:
The Latin rubrics suggest that it was written for a clerical devotee of the Virgin, while the decoration indicates an origin in the Lower Rhineland, possibly Cologne. Soon afterwards, a cursive German hand added a prayer to St Sebastian, f.100v.
A 20th-century hand itemised the decoration in German on the final endleaf.
CONTENT AND ILLUMINATION:
Psalter of the Virgin, attributed to St Bonaventura (1221-1275), ff.1-100v: Prologue ff.1-6; Psalter ff.7-89v; Litany of the Virgin ff.89v-96v; Te matrem dei laudamus ff.96v-100v.
The Psalter of the Virgin epitomises the exaltation of Mary, the Mother of God, which became an ever more important element in later mediaeval piety. The author, traditionally St Bonaventura (1221-1274), the Franciscan famed for his Marian devotion, rewrote the psalms and canticles to direct their praise and petitions to the Virgin, sometimes by a simple change of words, such as substituting 'Lady' for 'Lord', or by minimal insertions, so that the Te deum becomes 'We praise thee, O Mother of God'. Other cases required more substantial modifications. Numerous printed editions across Europe, among them one in Ulm in 1492, demonstrate the popularity of the work in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In this carefully crafted manuscript, the seven divisions of the psalter for recitation on the different days of the week are marked by richly gilded and coloured decoration, honouring the Virgin through both text and illumination.
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