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King David in Judgement, on a leaf from a Psalter-Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Northern France or Southern Netherlands, c.1260]
Details
Anonymous Flemish or French artist
King David in Judgement, on a leaf from a Psalter-Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Northern France or Southern Netherlands, c.1260]
A leaf with a historiated initial and remarkably inventive and charming line-filler drawings, from an exceptionally lavishly illuminated Psalter-Hours made for a nun.
c.177 × 135mm, foliated in pencil ‘78’, ruled in plummet for 20 lines, written in below top line in gothic script, containing the text of Psalms 34:24–35:11, each verse starting on a new line, leaving spaces to be filled with line-fillers which alternate between abstract patterns in red, blue, and gold, and figurative designs in red and blue, including a bird, a dog, and several dragon-, human-, or fish hybrids, each verse with an initial in burnished gold flourished in blue, or in blue flourished in red, the Psalm with a four-line historiated initial with a gold ground depicting King David(?), seated in judgment and holding a drawn sword, a human head forming the terminal of the initial ‘D’(ixit iniustus) (staining to the extreme corners, light smudging, otherwise in very good condition).
Provenance:
(1) The place of origin of the well-known parent manuscript has not yet been identified, with most suggestions placing it in the adjoining regions of northern or eastern France, eastern Belgium, or the Rhineland. Claims are also sometimes made for England, for two reasons; first, on the basis that this is where elaborate line-fillers similar to those in the present manuscript are most frequently found – but they are by no means exclusive to England. Second, because the Psalm 51 initial shows a priest being killed by a soldier, and this has been interpreted as the Martyrdom of Thomas Becket. But the latter is more likely to represent Doeg the Edomite Killing Ahimelech, Priest of Nob (1 Samuel 22:18), a common subject at Psalm 51 in 13th-century Psalters (especially in England, but also on the Continent), because it is referred to in the titulus of the Psalm.
More than 70 leaves are recorded. In a series of blogposts, summarised in The McCarthy Collection, II (London, 2019), no 20, Peter Kidd showed that, in addition to the psalms and doubtless a calendar, the text included the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead; and from prayers mentioning ‘our abbess’, must have been made for a nun.
(2) Leaves first appeared on the London market in the 1960s, suggesting where and when the imperfect parent volume was dispersed. It had perhaps been in England for some decades, as the foliation is not in a Continental hand.
(3) Dr H. F. Jossi-Debrunner (1922–1986), Swiss lawyer: in his(?) card mount with typescript description in German (no. 1201); his sale at Sotheby’s, 4 December 2007, lot 19.
Illumination:
The leaf—and indeed the entire manuscript—is notable for its inventive and flamboyant line-fillers, peopled with fish, birds, dragons, grotesques, etc., and for the exceptional and unusual fact that every single psalm and prayer is preceded by a historiated initial (where most commonly the format would be to have larger initials only for the eight major divisions). The illumination has previously been attributed to England, Flanders, Eastern France, Lower Lorraine, and the Rhineland. As Kidd points out, though, although the highly varied line-fillers of some leaves are usually associated with English manuscripts, the style of the illuminated initials finds no close parallels in England: Flanders or France therefore seem a more likely origin.
King David in Judgement, on a leaf from a Psalter-Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Northern France or Southern Netherlands, c.1260]
A leaf with a historiated initial and remarkably inventive and charming line-filler drawings, from an exceptionally lavishly illuminated Psalter-Hours made for a nun.
c.177 × 135mm, foliated in pencil ‘78’, ruled in plummet for 20 lines, written in below top line in gothic script, containing the text of Psalms 34:24–35:11, each verse starting on a new line, leaving spaces to be filled with line-fillers which alternate between abstract patterns in red, blue, and gold, and figurative designs in red and blue, including a bird, a dog, and several dragon-, human-, or fish hybrids, each verse with an initial in burnished gold flourished in blue, or in blue flourished in red, the Psalm with a four-line historiated initial with a gold ground depicting King David(?), seated in judgment and holding a drawn sword, a human head forming the terminal of the initial ‘D’(ixit iniustus) (staining to the extreme corners, light smudging, otherwise in very good condition).
Provenance:
(1) The place of origin of the well-known parent manuscript has not yet been identified, with most suggestions placing it in the adjoining regions of northern or eastern France, eastern Belgium, or the Rhineland. Claims are also sometimes made for England, for two reasons; first, on the basis that this is where elaborate line-fillers similar to those in the present manuscript are most frequently found – but they are by no means exclusive to England. Second, because the Psalm 51 initial shows a priest being killed by a soldier, and this has been interpreted as the Martyrdom of Thomas Becket. But the latter is more likely to represent Doeg the Edomite Killing Ahimelech, Priest of Nob (1 Samuel 22:18), a common subject at Psalm 51 in 13th-century Psalters (especially in England, but also on the Continent), because it is referred to in the titulus of the Psalm.
More than 70 leaves are recorded. In a series of blogposts, summarised in The McCarthy Collection, II (London, 2019), no 20, Peter Kidd showed that, in addition to the psalms and doubtless a calendar, the text included the Hours of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead; and from prayers mentioning ‘our abbess’, must have been made for a nun.
(2) Leaves first appeared on the London market in the 1960s, suggesting where and when the imperfect parent volume was dispersed. It had perhaps been in England for some decades, as the foliation is not in a Continental hand.
(3) Dr H. F. Jossi-Debrunner (1922–1986), Swiss lawyer: in his(?) card mount with typescript description in German (no. 1201); his sale at Sotheby’s, 4 December 2007, lot 19.
Illumination:
The leaf—and indeed the entire manuscript—is notable for its inventive and flamboyant line-fillers, peopled with fish, birds, dragons, grotesques, etc., and for the exceptional and unusual fact that every single psalm and prayer is preceded by a historiated initial (where most commonly the format would be to have larger initials only for the eight major divisions). The illumination has previously been attributed to England, Flanders, Eastern France, Lower Lorraine, and the Rhineland. As Kidd points out, though, although the highly varied line-fillers of some leaves are usually associated with English manuscripts, the style of the illuminated initials finds no close parallels in England: Flanders or France therefore seem a more likely origin.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts