John the Baptist, on a cutting from an illuminated manuscript antiphoner, in Latin, on vellum [Germany, late fifteenth or early sixteenth century]

a cutting, 160mm. by 145mm., with a large initial ‘F’ (opening “Fuit homo missus a deo …”, the responsory for the Feast of John the Baptist) in leafy green fronds, enclosing the saint holding a blue book with two gold leaf-shaped clasps and an Agnes Dei with a banderole, remnants of thin scrolling coloured acanthus leaves in lower part, verso with remains of 3 lines in Latin with music on a 4-line red stave, small initial ‘R’ in red, large initial ‘E’ in blue touched with red penwork, traces of paper in margin from earlier framing, some small areas of damage at right-hand edge, dark marks in middle of initial from ink-burn, else good condition

While the simple stylised form of the saint’s face identifies this miniature with the German style known as Nonnenarbeiten (works produced by cloistered women for their own use), the present cutting is unlike any example of that work recorded by Hamburger (Nuns as Artists, 1997), and most probably this is the work of a monastic artist from an as yet unrecorded centre. The brush and penstrokes may be simple, but they convey a deep sense of placidity in the saint’s expression, and the delicate yellow penwork on his halo echoes the finest examples of late gothic German art.