Simon Bening (1483/84-1561)
Pentecost, miniature from an illuminated manuscript on vellum [Bruges, c.1430-1435]
Details
Simon Bening (1483/84-1561)
Pentecost, miniature from an illuminated manuscript on vellum [Bruges, c.1430-1435]
74 x 48mm. Laid down on card. 20th-century frame and mount.
Provenance:
(1) The miniature comes most likely from a Book of Hours, where it would have opened the Hours of the Holy Spirit. Although a relatively large number of manuscripts attributable to Simon Bening survive, many are not preserved intact. Several are missing individual miniatures or sections, some have been dismembered and their miniatures mounted, and others have been reduced to groups of detached leaves whose text and bindings have long since disappeared: our miniature belongs to the latter group (Judith A Testa, ‘Fragments of a Spanish prayerbook with miniatures by Simon Bening’, Oud Holland, vol. 10, no. 2 (1991), pp.89-115; for mention of our leaf see p.112, no 5). There are more detached miniatures attributable to Simon Bening than to any other illuminator.
(2) Sotheby’s, 10 December 1969, lot 20 (part): sold framed together with three miniatures from the same manuscript, depicting the Visitation, Annunciation to the Shepherds, and Flight into Egypt, acquired by:
(3) Bernard Breslauer (1918-2004): see W.M. Voelkle and R.S. Wieck, The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, 1992, pp.102-103, nos 23-26, all miniatures described as being on versos; the present miniature is no 26. The Annunciation to the Shepherds (no 24) was acquired by Dr. Kevin Harrington, California (1938-2013) before being sold at Sotheby’s, 6 July 2022, lot 1.
(4) With Les Enluminures, where acquired by the present owner in 2003.
Illumination
The last of the great Flemish illuminators and the most widely renowned, Simon Bening began to attract high-status commissions from an international clientele shortly after receiving his mastership in 1508. The son of the Ghent illuminator Alexander Bening and Kathelijn van der Goes, probably the sister or niece of the painter Hugo, Bening’s family was also connected to the great painter Rogier van der Weyden. Presumably trained by his father, Simon’s work drew upon a knowledge of his predecessors while developing his own style, which brought a new humanity to the divine narrative and a naturalism to landscapes. Bening’s illustrious career spanned more than half a century; he won patrons among the Hapsburg imperial family and Iberian aristocracy in addition to those from his homeland, where he was active between Antwerp and Bruges. The earliest of his documented or signed works is the Imhof Prayerbook of 1511, thought to have been made for Hans V Imhof (1461-1522), the last is an inscribed self-portrait dated 1558. As put by Thomas Kren, ‘The art of no other Flemish illuminator so fully epitomizes the triumph of Flemish miniature painting in Europe and its enduring eminence as a court art’ (Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, p.447; for Bening pp.447-486).
Bening’s work encompassed many types and format of manuscript, from freestanding altarpieces on vellum to large breviaries, but personal devotional books small enough to be carried around and kept close by their owners seem to have been a speciality of the artist and his workshop. As such, the diminutive size of the present miniature places it squarely within his oeuvre: it is almost exactly the same format as a miniature of the Resurrection held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (1964.8.12; c.1530, miniature dimensions: 70 x 48mm), whose parent manuscript and sister leaves have not yet been identified, and stands rather taller than the jewel-like miniature Book of Hours with pages measuring 59 x 42mm that appears to be Bening’s most petite work (Christie’s, 9 July 2001, lot 35).
Yet another small-format Book of Hours, painted in 1431 (Morgan Library and Museum, New York, Ms. M.451; page dimensions: 74 x 56mm), is held up by Kren as the earliest dated example of the tiny, fleck-like brushstrokes characteristic of Bening’s last thirty years. This technique, which Bening employed to give his compositions – particularly his landscapes – a velvety texture and sense of atmosphere, is apparent in the present miniature and its three sisters (illustrated in black and white in the Breslauer catalogue, op. cit.). Voelkle and Wieck place these miniatures around the same date as the Munich-Monserrat Hours, c.1535-40 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Lat. 23638 and Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Musuem, Ms. 3) and comparison with the Pentecost scene Bening painted for that manuscript – on a detached leaf that reappeared at Christie’s in 2005 (16 November 2005, lot 35) – probably supports their suggestion that our miniature and its sisters could have been painted a little earlier: the Munich-Monserrat composition, set within a grand vaulted and aisled hall, displays a particularly sophisticated use of space that would seem to indicate a more mature artist. Yet, in spite of the restricted format of our miniature, Bening nevertheless captures an emotionally charged scene, furnishing the apostles with expressive features and gestures and utilising one of his established techniques, the dramatic close-up, with figures at half-length and placed close to the picture plane. The Virgin of our Pentecost closely resembles the Virgin to whom Christ appears in the Stein Quadriptych, another work in which Bening heavily exploited the close-up for dramatic effect, which Kren dates to the late 1520s or perhaps even later (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.442.D, panel D 58r).
Pentecost, miniature from an illuminated manuscript on vellum [Bruges, c.1430-1435]
74 x 48mm. Laid down on card. 20th-century frame and mount.
Provenance:
(1) The miniature comes most likely from a Book of Hours, where it would have opened the Hours of the Holy Spirit. Although a relatively large number of manuscripts attributable to Simon Bening survive, many are not preserved intact. Several are missing individual miniatures or sections, some have been dismembered and their miniatures mounted, and others have been reduced to groups of detached leaves whose text and bindings have long since disappeared: our miniature belongs to the latter group (Judith A Testa, ‘Fragments of a Spanish prayerbook with miniatures by Simon Bening’, Oud Holland, vol. 10, no. 2 (1991), pp.89-115; for mention of our leaf see p.112, no 5). There are more detached miniatures attributable to Simon Bening than to any other illuminator.
(2) Sotheby’s, 10 December 1969, lot 20 (part): sold framed together with three miniatures from the same manuscript, depicting the Visitation, Annunciation to the Shepherds, and Flight into Egypt, acquired by:
(3) Bernard Breslauer (1918-2004): see W.M. Voelkle and R.S. Wieck, The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, 1992, pp.102-103, nos 23-26, all miniatures described as being on versos; the present miniature is no 26. The Annunciation to the Shepherds (no 24) was acquired by Dr. Kevin Harrington, California (1938-2013) before being sold at Sotheby’s, 6 July 2022, lot 1.
(4) With Les Enluminures, where acquired by the present owner in 2003.
Illumination
The last of the great Flemish illuminators and the most widely renowned, Simon Bening began to attract high-status commissions from an international clientele shortly after receiving his mastership in 1508. The son of the Ghent illuminator Alexander Bening and Kathelijn van der Goes, probably the sister or niece of the painter Hugo, Bening’s family was also connected to the great painter Rogier van der Weyden. Presumably trained by his father, Simon’s work drew upon a knowledge of his predecessors while developing his own style, which brought a new humanity to the divine narrative and a naturalism to landscapes. Bening’s illustrious career spanned more than half a century; he won patrons among the Hapsburg imperial family and Iberian aristocracy in addition to those from his homeland, where he was active between Antwerp and Bruges. The earliest of his documented or signed works is the Imhof Prayerbook of 1511, thought to have been made for Hans V Imhof (1461-1522), the last is an inscribed self-portrait dated 1558. As put by Thomas Kren, ‘The art of no other Flemish illuminator so fully epitomizes the triumph of Flemish miniature painting in Europe and its enduring eminence as a court art’ (Illuminating the Renaissance, 2003, p.447; for Bening pp.447-486).
Bening’s work encompassed many types and format of manuscript, from freestanding altarpieces on vellum to large breviaries, but personal devotional books small enough to be carried around and kept close by their owners seem to have been a speciality of the artist and his workshop. As such, the diminutive size of the present miniature places it squarely within his oeuvre: it is almost exactly the same format as a miniature of the Resurrection held at the National Gallery of Art in Washington D.C. (1964.8.12; c.1530, miniature dimensions: 70 x 48mm), whose parent manuscript and sister leaves have not yet been identified, and stands rather taller than the jewel-like miniature Book of Hours with pages measuring 59 x 42mm that appears to be Bening’s most petite work (Christie’s, 9 July 2001, lot 35).
Yet another small-format Book of Hours, painted in 1431 (Morgan Library and Museum, New York, Ms. M.451; page dimensions: 74 x 56mm), is held up by Kren as the earliest dated example of the tiny, fleck-like brushstrokes characteristic of Bening’s last thirty years. This technique, which Bening employed to give his compositions – particularly his landscapes – a velvety texture and sense of atmosphere, is apparent in the present miniature and its three sisters (illustrated in black and white in the Breslauer catalogue, op. cit.). Voelkle and Wieck place these miniatures around the same date as the Munich-Monserrat Hours, c.1535-40 (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Ms. Lat. 23638 and Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Musuem, Ms. 3) and comparison with the Pentecost scene Bening painted for that manuscript – on a detached leaf that reappeared at Christie’s in 2005 (16 November 2005, lot 35) – probably supports their suggestion that our miniature and its sisters could have been painted a little earlier: the Munich-Monserrat composition, set within a grand vaulted and aisled hall, displays a particularly sophisticated use of space that would seem to indicate a more mature artist. Yet, in spite of the restricted format of our miniature, Bening nevertheless captures an emotionally charged scene, furnishing the apostles with expressive features and gestures and utilising one of his established techniques, the dramatic close-up, with figures at half-length and placed close to the picture plane. The Virgin of our Pentecost closely resembles the Virgin to whom Christ appears in the Stein Quadriptych, another work in which Bening heavily exploited the close-up for dramatic effect, which Kren dates to the late 1520s or perhaps even later (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W.442.D, panel D 58r).
榮譽呈獻
Sophie Meadows
Senior Specialist