An Angel sitting on Christ’s Tomb, a historiated initial from an Antiphonary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Germany, late fifteenth century]

a cutting, 128mm. by 133mm., historiated initial ‘A’ (probably opening “Angelus domini descendit de caelo...", the first nocturn of Matins for Easter Sunday), formed of scrolling blue acanthus with scalloped edges on a light pink ground decorated with a pattern of gold stars, enclosing the small figure of an angel sitting on the lid of an open sarcophagus, holding a large scroll inscribed in red ink “Surrexit. Dominus non est hic. Ecce locus ubi posuerunt eum” (He has risen. The Lord is not here. Behold, here is the place where they laid him: Mark 16:6), the reverse with three 4-line staves in red, green, ochre and black ink with music and text in a gothic hand, rastrum 22mm., small pigment losses from a few horizontal creases mainly affecting the letter, the reverse with remains of paper at edges and tape along left side

The imagery of the youthful angel sitting with large outspread wings on the lid of the sarcophagus is indebted to the German engraver and painter, Martin Schongauer (1450-91), a leading figure of the German Renaissance whose influence went far beyond the Rhine Valley. Characteristic is the rounded face with well-groomed hair and the heavy drapery with large angular folds. Schongauer’s print with the Angel of St. Matthew from the series of the symbols of the Four Evangelists (Bartsch 73; Lehrs 72), dating from about 1480, might have partly inspired the composition.