Lot 19

Collection of miniatures from illuminated manuscripts, on vellum

Estimate

3,000 - 5,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

5 miniatures on cuttings, (a) The Raising of Lazarus, 102mm. by 70mm., with the figures of Christ surrounded by followers, one hand raised in blessing, as Lazarus rises from his coffin helped by an assistant, all before a cross, all on rich brown background and picked out similar to grisaille work through strokes of liquid gold and other shades of brown, 8 lines in elaborate calligraphic script from the Office of Dead on verso, some slight damage to Lazarus, figure behind him and Christ's arm, else good condition, northern France (possibly Rouen) early sixteenth century; and three nineteenth-century miniatures in the Flemish style: (b) King David kneeling in prayer, his crown and harp before him, as God appears in the sky above, all before a rich and detailed medieval castle, 183mm. by 126mm., striking pink border with diagonal hatching and adorned with large medieval jewels in a trompe d'oeil style, some flaking of small areas; (c) The Entombment of Christ, 187mm. by 137mm., with Joseph of Arimathea supporting Christ's shoulders before followers in a rocky landscape with Jerusalem in the background, borders of pale egg-shell blue with gold flecks containing scenes of a bird, a snail, a medieval knight in armour with a sword raised excellent condition and Christ attacking devils who guard the Gates of Hell (the faces of the damned peering out from the doorway); (d) Christ in the mystical wine-press, standing on a column as his stigmata bleed into a fountain below, surrounded in the foreground by throngs of medieval supplicants who kneel, and in the background by hordes of angels picked out in liquid gold in the blue sky, border of green with foliage, fruit and a butterfly; (e) The Adoration of the Magi, 127mm. by 127mm., on a piece of vellum 240mm. by 195mm., within an initial 'C' composed of fleshy coloured acanthus leaves and on a burnished gold ground, with a column of random letters in same or in burnished gold on coloured grounds (one enclosing a flower); all in excellent condition

Catalogue Note

Item (a) is an appealing and attractive late medieval miniature. The other items are well accomplished examples of the medieval revival in the nineteenth century, and at least three of them (b-e) are in identical arch-topped frames and must be by the same artist. This was doubtless Caleb Wing (1801-75), the restorer, teacher, facsimilist and manuscript illuminator, who is best known for his 'restorations' for the London collector J.B. Jarman after his "beautiful collection of Illuminated Missals and Books of Hours" was badly damaged in a flood in 1846 (J. Backhouse, 'A Victorian Connoisseur and his Manuscripts: The Tale of Mr. Jarman and Mr. Wing', The British Museum Quarterly 32 ,1967-8; S. Hindman et al., Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age, 2001, pp. 125-9, and see also British Library, Egerton MS.2973 and Morgan MS. M.306, both extremely skilfully retouched by him). However, he also added illuminations to volumes where none had existed before, and painted numerous modern copies onto modern vellum: some 60 sets of these are briefly described in the 1864 catalogue of Jarman's collection. These here may well descend from one of those albums. His work was regarded as highly collectible in the nineteenth century, and he executed commissions for collectors such as Lord Aldenham (1819-1907), and spent the period of the 1859 holiday season in the fashionable town of Brighton where he offered drawing classes to young ladies. The present miniature is identical in composition to a miniature by the Master of the Houghton Miniatures, made in Ghent c.1480, and now in a private collection (Illuminating the Renaissance, item 34, p. 176, illustration 34a), and that miniature or something very similar is most probably the inspiration for the present one. Interestingly, David's robes in the medieval miniature have now faded to a pale yellow, but it has been suggested by T. Kren in Illuminating the Renaissance, p. 178, n.1, that they were originally bright red (as in the present miniature). The artist of ours appears to have seen the other miniature before it faded.