King David, large historiated initial on a leaf from a Dominican Choir Psalter, in Latin [Italy, Romagna, c.1485-90]

single leaf, 515x370mm, vellum, with a large initial ‘D’, 195x205mm, and a full border incorporating putti and saints, for Psalm 109 ‘Dixit dominus’, 14 lines, 375x250mm, including one line of music on a five-line stave alternately red or pale brown, rastrum 23mm, the gold, pigments, and ink somewhat worn, with some losses, the decoration in the outer and lower margins slightly cropped

Sold by Bruscoli, Florence, in 1924 to ROBERT LEHMAN (1891-1969), head of Lehman Brothers bank, his C.1 (de Ricci, Census, II, p.1711), part of ‘one of the largest, most impressive private collections of Italian manuscripts assembled after the First Work War and comparable only to the Cini Collection in Venice’, according to Philippe de Montebello; deposited at The Metropolitan Museum, New York; exhibited from February 2003 to February 2004 at the Cleveland Museum of Art, Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and Metropolitan Museum (Pia Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, no.51 with full-page colour illustration).

Palladino notes similarities between the present leaf and miniatures in the Graduals from the Cathedral of Cesena, now Biblioteca Malatestiana, Corali A-G; the present leaf is especially close to a Madonna and Child in Corale C.

Psalm 109 is the first psalm sung at vespers on Sundays, and thus is one of the major divisions of the psalter. The opening verse, ‘The Lord said unto my Lord, sit at my right hand’, often inspired artists to represent the Trinity, with God the Father and Son seated next to one another, and the Dove above. Here, instead, the artist has depicted King David (supposed author of the Psalms) seated on a throne, under which two other kings are being crushed, representing the next words of the verse: ‘until I make thine enemies thy footstool’. In the four corners of the border are the Four Evangelists, and at the mid-points at the top are the Virgin and Child, to the sides two Dominican saints (Sts Dominic and Thomas Aquinas?), and in the lower border a bishop-saint. If the manuscript was made for the Dominican church in Cesena, then this bishop-saint could be St Maurus of Cesena.