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Details
STANDING FIGURE OF CHRIST, part of an historiated initial cut from a choirbook, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Veneto, workshop of Cristoforo Cortese, c.1430]
129 x 67mm overall. Beside a blue initial stave with curling acanthus leaves of orange, pink and green and against a background of burnished gold, a figure of Christ in a salmon pink robe with an ochre mantle his hands held in prayer, standing on a rocky ground with two trees (slight losses from the gold ground and from the paint applied over the gold ground). Mounted.
The lush and feathery acanthus foliage is characteristic of the decoration of manuscripts produced in the workshop of Cristoforo Cortese (fl.1409-1439) the leading Venetian illuminator of his day. Other comparable initials include some in Venice and Oxford: G. Mariani Canova, Miniature dell'Italia settentrionale nella Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice, 1978), no 73, pp.35-36 and O. Pächt and J.J.G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford, 1970), ii, no 468.
[Veneto, workshop of Cristoforo Cortese, c.1430]
129 x 67mm overall. Beside a blue initial stave with curling acanthus leaves of orange, pink and green and against a background of burnished gold, a figure of Christ in a salmon pink robe with an ochre mantle his hands held in prayer, standing on a rocky ground with two trees (slight losses from the gold ground and from the paint applied over the gold ground). Mounted.
The lush and feathery acanthus foliage is characteristic of the decoration of manuscripts produced in the workshop of Cristoforo Cortese (fl.1409-1439) the leading Venetian illuminator of his day. Other comparable initials include some in Venice and Oxford: G. Mariani Canova, Miniature dell'Italia settentrionale nella Fondazione Giorgio Cini (Venice, 1978), no 73, pp.35-36 and O. Pächt and J.J.G. Alexander, Illuminated Manuscripts in the Bodleian Library Oxford (Oxford, 1970), ii, no 468.