![CHRIST BLESSING and SHEEP AMID WOLVES, historiated initial ‘E’ cut from an ILLUMINATED ANTIPHONAL ON VELLUM, [Italy, probably Umbria, c.1290s]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2015/CKS/2015_CKS_11670_0009_000(christ_blessing_and_sheep_amid_wolves_historiated_initial_e_cut_from_a055002).jpg?w=1)
Details
CHRIST BLESSING and SHEEP AMID WOLVES, historiated initial ‘E’ cut from an ILLUMINATED ANTIPHONAL ON VELLUM, [Italy, probably Umbria, c.1290s]
140 x 140mm. The verso with two lines of text and music on four-line staves (tiny loss of pigment to the halos of the figures in the upper half of the miniature and to the two wolves in the lower half). Laid down on card and framed.
The miniature introduces the responsory ‘Ecce ego mitto vos sicut oves in medio luporum’ for the first nocturn of the Common of Apostles and is drawn from the text of Matthew 10,16. The palette is awash with bright pinks, reds and blues and the artist’s brushstrokes are sweeping and confident. The figures, with their formulaic postures and long, defined features reveal a debt to Byzantine art, and the style can be closely linked to the circle of artists responsible for the production of seven choirbooks for the abbey of San Pietro in Gubbio (now in the Archivio di Stato), led by the anonymous Master of the Gubbio Choirbooks (see M. Bollati, Dizionario Biografico dei Miniatori Italiani, 2004, pp.453-4). A close comparable to the present miniature can be found in a cutting from a Gradual depicting the Holy Trinity in the Philadelphia Free Library (Lewis EM 47:18-20).
140 x 140mm. The verso with two lines of text and music on four-line staves (tiny loss of pigment to the halos of the figures in the upper half of the miniature and to the two wolves in the lower half). Laid down on card and framed.
The miniature introduces the responsory ‘Ecce ego mitto vos sicut oves in medio luporum’ for the first nocturn of the Common of Apostles and is drawn from the text of Matthew 10,16. The palette is awash with bright pinks, reds and blues and the artist’s brushstrokes are sweeping and confident. The figures, with their formulaic postures and long, defined features reveal a debt to Byzantine art, and the style can be closely linked to the circle of artists responsible for the production of seven choirbooks for the abbey of San Pietro in Gubbio (now in the Archivio di Stato), led by the anonymous Master of the Gubbio Choirbooks (see M. Bollati, Dizionario Biografico dei Miniatori Italiani, 2004, pp.453-4). A close comparable to the present miniature can be found in a cutting from a Gradual depicting the Holy Trinity in the Philadelphia Free Library (Lewis EM 47:18-20).
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