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A young female saint in prayer, a historiated initial on a leaf from a Psalter, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [southern Germany, late fourteenth century]
Estimate
3,000 - 5,000 GBP
bidding is closed
Description
- Vellum
single leaf, 410mm. by 335mm., with a historiated initial ‘C’ (opening "Cantate domino canticum novum quia mirabilia fecit …", Psalm 97) in pink against a gold patterned ground within a green profile frame, two bulbous flowers extending from corners into the margin, enclosing the slim figure of a young standing female saint, dressed in blue with a red halo, her hands folded in prayer, two columns, remains of 50 lines (probably three or four lines missing at top) written in a gothic bookhand, rubrics in red (some containing instructions for when they should be read during Mass), tiny guide letters for rubricator in margins, one-line initials in red and blue, 3-line initials in red with purple pen-flourishing or in blue with red pen-flourishing, recovered from a book binding and so with edges folded, upper margin trimmed away, vellum cockled and stained, small holes (most with repairs), remains of paper on recto, inscriptions "1649" and "No 870." from reuse (presumably the year and number of accounts)
Catalogue Note
This leaf belonged to a large German Psalter. The elegant historiated initial is representative for the International Gothic. The courtly style developed in the late fourteenth century and then spread widely across Western Europe.