Young saint holding a palm of martyrdom, cutting from an illuminated Psalter, on vellum [Germany (Franconia, probably Würzburg), c.1245-50]

cutting, 88mm. by 65mm., historiated initial ‘O’ (perhaps opening Psalm 101 “Oratio pauperis…”) in white with blue panels, terminating in scrolling green, blue and red leaves, enclosing the three-quarter-length figure of a young saint with a blue halo, dressed in blue with a red mantle, the right hand raised, the left hand holding a green palm branch, on a burnished gold ground, the outer corners with silver (now oxidised), within an illusionistic green frame with white inset, ruling of 12 lines visible through leaf, laid down on card, small losses from gold and silver, slightly rubbed in places, else in good condition, with early twentieth-century pencil inscriptions on mount of ‘1920’ (presumably the date of last framing, and ‘no. 4’ (presumably its sequence in a group), other pencil notes in Dutch on card from last framing with date 14 January 1948

This cutting can be placed within the manuscripts linked to the so-called Komburg Psalter (Stuttgart, Württemb. Landesbibl., Cod. Bibl. fol.46), which has been recently dated to c.1240-45 and localised to the diocese of Würzburg (H. Swarzenski, Die lateinischen illuminierten Handschriften des XIII. Jahrhunderts, 1936, I, p.147; C. Sauer, Die Gotischen Handschriften, 1996, pp.93-5; S. Westphal in Studien zur Buchmalerei des 13. Jahrhunderts in Franken, 2011, pp.163-208), and less convincingly to Bamberg (Engelhart, Die Würzburger Buchmalerei im Hohen Mittelalter, 1987, I, p.51). The present initial is closest to two miniatures set behind horn plates on the binding of the Komburg Psalter (for a colour illustration see Westphal, id., fig.1), and other initials and miniatures in four Psalters and various fragments dated between 1245 and 1250 (Neuburg an der Donau, Hist. Verein Schlossmuseum, Inv. Nr.HV B 892; Stuttgart, Württemb. Landesbibl., HB II 25 to which belong fragments in Munich, Staatliche Graph. Slg., Inv.-Nr.39793-39796 and perhaps also 39797-39798; a Psalter-fragment in Karlsruhe, Badische Landesbibl., 410b; a leaf once in the Breslauer collection (Voelkle and Wieck, 1992, no.32); New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, G.73; Paris, BnF., lat.1079; see Westphal, id., pp.174-83). All of these illuminations show similar figures drawn in black lines used to define facial features, hair and folds, often ending in zig-zags. They are painted predominantly in translucent blue, red, green and light pink. Most characteristic are initials with palmette-shaped leaves painted in similar colours standing against gold and silver grounds and set within illusionistic frames.