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God the Father, Lombardy, perhaps Cremona, 3rd quarter 15th century
Details
Maestro dai Fondi Giallini
God the Father, Lombardy, perhaps Cremona, 3rd quarter 15th century
GOD THE FATHER, historiated initial ‘B’ from an Antiphonal, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Lombardy, perhaps Cremona, third quarter of the 15th century]
A large, fine example of 15th-century Lombard illumination, attributable to the Maestro dai Fondi Giallini.
c.190 x 220mm (laid down, slight rubbing to the gold and small pigment losses including at the centre of Christ’s robe). Provenance: Pierre Ge´lis-Didot (1853-1937; his sale, Paris, 12-13 April 1897, lot 87 along with another depicting Moses).
This initial is identifiable as belonging stylistically with a group of dispersed cuttings (several belonging to the Houghton Library, Harvard) originating in a single choirbook, brought together by Anna Melograni in 'Miniature inedite del Quattrocento lombardo nelle collezione americane', Storia dell'Arte, 1994, pp.289-94. They are painted an artist given the name Maestro dai Fondi Giallini, whose work was first identified in a series of Graduals made for the convent of Sant'Agostino in Cremona (Museo Civico, mss XIII-XV); the Master is named for the distinctive use of mustard-yellow backgrounds in certain of his works. His style owes an obvious debt to the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, favoured illuminator of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan: characteristic traits found in the present miniature are the bifurcated beard of God the Father and the fluid treatment of the pooled draperies. The flat, somewhat doll-like face of God the Father recalls in particular those of Sts Ambrose and Ursula from two miniatures painted by the Maestro dai Fondi Giallini sold at Christie's, 28 November 2001, lot 3 and 12 June 2013, lot 8.
God the Father, Lombardy, perhaps Cremona, 3rd quarter 15th century
GOD THE FATHER, historiated initial ‘B’ from an Antiphonal, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Lombardy, perhaps Cremona, third quarter of the 15th century]
A large, fine example of 15th-century Lombard illumination, attributable to the Maestro dai Fondi Giallini.
c.190 x 220mm (laid down, slight rubbing to the gold and small pigment losses including at the centre of Christ’s robe). Provenance: Pierre Ge´lis-Didot (1853-1937; his sale, Paris, 12-13 April 1897, lot 87 along with another depicting Moses).
This initial is identifiable as belonging stylistically with a group of dispersed cuttings (several belonging to the Houghton Library, Harvard) originating in a single choirbook, brought together by Anna Melograni in 'Miniature inedite del Quattrocento lombardo nelle collezione americane', Storia dell'Arte, 1994, pp.289-94. They are painted an artist given the name Maestro dai Fondi Giallini, whose work was first identified in a series of Graduals made for the convent of Sant'Agostino in Cremona (Museo Civico, mss XIII-XV); the Master is named for the distinctive use of mustard-yellow backgrounds in certain of his works. His style owes an obvious debt to the Master of the Vitae Imperatorum, favoured illuminator of Filippo Maria Visconti, Duke of Milan: characteristic traits found in the present miniature are the bifurcated beard of God the Father and the fluid treatment of the pooled draperies. The flat, somewhat doll-like face of God the Father recalls in particular those of Sts Ambrose and Ursula from two miniatures painted by the Maestro dai Fondi Giallini sold at Christie's, 28 November 2001, lot 3 and 12 June 2013, lot 8.
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