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A Green Woodpecker, illuminated border from a choirbook of King Manual I of Portugal, illuminated manuscript on vellum
Estimate
800 - 1,200 GBP
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Description
a fragment, 22mm. by 42mm., cut from the upper part of the border of a choirbook, a green woodpecker standing on an elaborate acanthus stem in brown and liquid gold, a sprig with two strawberries above, narrow border imitating a wooden frame around three edges, a ladybird climbing the border behind the woodpecker, blue ground, verso blank except for tiny traces of the ends of red staves, a diagonal crease, cut to shape
Catalogue Note
A small piece of a Portuguese royal manuscript. Fragments from the same book, including the arms of King Manuel I (1469-1521), king of Portugal 1495-1521, patron of Vasco da Gama, were sold in these rooms, 22 June 1999, lot 48. The illumination is characteristically Netherlandish, in the Ghent-Bruges style, and this may well be the work of Antonio de Hollandia (1480-1557), Simon Bening’s collaborator in British Library Add.MS. 12531, whom King Manuel brought to Portugal as his court illuminator in 1518. He was still there in 1553 when he was mentioned in a letter to Michelangelo.