Lot 59

Vitae sanctorum, including the life of Saint George, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Germany, Rhineland (perhaps Cologne), c.1300]

Estimate

5,000 - 7,000 GBP

bidding is closed

Description

Vellum

a large leaf, 433mm. by 321mm., two columns, 48 lines, a gothic textura bookhand (littera textualis formata), heading in red, capitals touched in red, very large historiated initial (13 lines), the letter in pale blue and pink terminating in a tonsured head, enclosing a galloping knight in armour with the arms of Saint George (argent a cross gules), on a cusped ground with gold bezants at the extremities, some rubbing, recovered from use as a wrapper with horizontal central wear, hessian binding

Provenance

provenance

Bought from Sam Fogg in 1990; Schøyen MS 696.

Catalogue Note

text

The lives of Saint Apagius and companions, martyrs in Numidia (30 April; Ruinart, Acta Martyrum, 1859, pp.271-74 here; Bibl. Hag. Lat., p.23, no.131); opening of the prologue to the life of Saint George (23 April; Bibl. Hag. Lat., p.503, no.3372).

The galloping heraldic knight is a quintessentially gothic subject. The style of painting is that of Cologne in the opening years of the fourteenth century; cf., for example, E. Galley, 'Eine Kölner Buchmalereiwerkstatt aus der ersten Hälfte des 14 Jahrhunderts', Düsseldorfer Jahrbuch, 46, 1954, pp.121-36, and N. Morgan and S. Panayotova, A Catalogue of Western Book Illumination in the Fitzwilliam Museum and the Cambridge Colleges, I, i, 2009, pp.162-3, no.79.