Lot 17

An Angel Descending to Christ's Tomb, large initial on a leaf from an illuminated Gradual, manuscript on vellum [Italy (Lombardy), late fifteenth or very early sixteenth century]

Estimate

8,000 - 12,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

single leaf, 550mm. by 380mm., with large initial 'A', (opening Matthew 28:2 'Angelus enim domini ...'), 165mm. by 165mm., formed by bold pink and green acanthus leaves and a white marble pillar, enclosing an angel, robed in the same bold pink, descending vertically, arms outstretched to Christ's sarcophagus below, a female saint (most probably Mary Magdalene) in the foreground gazing on, the cross bar of the initial formed of a pair of facing classical dolphins in beige and pastel brown, who gaze at two other dolphins picked out in the detail of the acanthus leaves above, all on wide burnished gold grounds with some coloured floral extensions into border, 6 lines of text with music on a 4-line red stave, perhaps trimmed at base by a cm. or so, laid down in card mount, excellent condition

Literature

Exhibited, Nasher Museum, Sacred Beauty, 2009, fig.2.

Catalogue Note

This is a leaf of breathtaking originality: it shows an angel descending headlong from heaven, apparently at great speed, seizing the lid of the sarcophagus of Christ, apparently watched by Mary Magdalene. Two dolphins, which are part of the cross-bar of the initial, appear to be startled by the descent. Dolphins were an early Christian symbol of resurrection.

Other leaves from the same manuscript were sold in these rooms, 13 December 1920, lots 429-32, now in the Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis EM 70.12-16, including the Harrowing of Hell, which would have preceded the present initial in the original manuscript (C. B. Strehlke in Leaves of Gold, 2001, pp.182-4, no.63). A further leaf was in the Lehman collection, New York, bought in Munich in 1924 (Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, p.179, no.12). The initials all show marked classical architectural motifs, and all spill out theatrically into their margins. The artist is probably to be identified as Giovanni Pietro da Cemmo (fl. c.1474-1507); cf. M. Marubbi in Arte Lombarda, 101, 1992, pp.7-31, and M. Bollatin in Una collezione di miniature italiane, ed. F. Todini, III, 1999, pp.74-79, no.XIII.