Lot 22

Leaf from an illuminated Book of Hours, showing a necklace of flowers, with birds, and caterpillars, manuscript on vellum [southern Netherlands (Ghent or Bruges), early sixteenth century]

Estimate

6,000 - 8,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

single leaf, 207mm. by 150mm., with a full border strewn with three strings of flowerbuds with single pen strokes to pick out the shadows beneath them, terminating with other flowers and tassels, nine naturalistic caterpillars, two butterflies, and four finely detailed birds (one with bright blue plumage), all on a pastel green ground, enclosing a 5-line initial in white branches on soft tan ground flecked with gold in lower-right corner (opening the suffrage for St. Nicholas), 18 lines of text on recto with rubrics, another illuminated initial and a line-filler, 5 lines of text on verso, some very slight paint flakes here and there, but overall outstanding condition, modern pencil "192" in upper right hand corner, in card mount

Provenance

Provenance: from a Book of Hours which belonged to Baron Adalbert von Lanna, of Prague (his sale, Vienna, 3 April 1911), Rudolf Busch (his sale, II, Frankfurt, 4 May 1921, lot 272); and Christie's, New York, 21 October 1977, lot 103, afterwards broken up. Other leaves belonged to Harry Bober (cf. R. Wieck, 'Folia Fugitiva', The Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, LIV, 1996, p.253, n.81).

Literature

Exhibited, Nasher Museum, Sacred Beauty, 2009, fig.3.

Catalogue Note

The script and the smaller initials are probably French work of the third quarter of the sixteenth century. A generation later the unfinished manuscript was sent to be illuminated by Simon Bening in Bruges or a painter on his immediate circle. The border here is of the most refined delicacy and quality, with an attention to detail in the larger coloured caterpillars and the shading behind the strings of flowerbuds which suggests the hand of the master himself. Here the images in the border complement and augment the text, with the scarlet flowerbuds linked together in strings of ten blossoms, recalling the ten beads of the rosary. They may actually be enamel and gold jewels, made to resemble flowers, adding a further layer of illusion.