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6 - [ENLUMINATION] Initial I from a choir book.
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Estimate €2,500 - €3,500
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Description
[ENLUMINATION] Initial I from a choir book. Standing Christ and kneeling man in prayer. Italy, Emilia-Romagna, Bologna, late 13th or early 14th century. Attributable to a Bolognese master (Master of Sant'Agnese?) under the influence of the Master of the Girona Bible (active in Bologna in the years 1260-1290). Historiated initial taken from an antiphonary or gradual painted in Emilia-Romagna (Bologna) on stylistic bases; square notation on 4-line staves in red; coloured acanthus leaves, grotesque motif (dragon) in red and grey, besant in burnished gold. Some chipping to the burnished gold, two small wormholes to the parchment without affecting the illuminated initial, otherwise good overall condition. Dimensions (irregular fragment), at widest: 210 x 105 mm This initial (and that of the following lot) can be compared with works associated with the "second style" of Bolognese illumination from the second half of the 13th century and the early 14th century, influenced by artists such as the Master of the Girona Bible (named after a sumptuous Bible in the Girona Chapter Library (MS.10The palette typical of Bologna at the end of the Duecento, with deep blue in the background with fine white highlights, red, green, pale pink and grey, is found in our initial. Influenced by Byzantine models, the miniatures painted by this illuminator are particularly reminiscent of the Master of Sant'Agnese (for example in the Graduale Ms. 521, Convento di Sant'Agnese. Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale) or the Master of the Girona Bible (e.g. Gradual Ms. 526, San Francesco Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale). The Master of Sant'Agnese was named by Fabrizio Lollini on the basis of commissions carried out around 1300 by the artist and illuminators in his workshop for the Dominican Sisters of Sant'Agnese, in particular the choir books preserved in the Museo Civico Medievale (cod. 519, 520 and 521). Recent works, including those by Roncroffi (2009), have helped to reconstruct these choir books, made for the Dominican nuns of Bologna in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries. Some aspects of the present initial are reminiscent of the leaves identified by P. Kidd (2019), no. 28, taken from a Gradual from Sant'Agnese di Val di Pietra (Bologna), or the leaves described by G. Freuler, from Sant'Agnese and Santa Maria Maddalena di Val di Pietra (Bologna). See Kennedy, T: Kennedy, T. "The Art of the Friars in the University City", in Medieval Bologna: Art for a University City, Nashville, 2021, pp. 57-64. - Kidd, P. The McCarthy Collection: Italian and Byzantine Miniatures, London, 2019, no. 28, pp. 88-90: parent volume, Bologna, Museo e Biblioteca della Musica, MS Lit. 4. - Freuler, G. Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, Milan 2013, no. 15, pp. 190-205: "Four fragments from a choirbook from the Dominican Nunnery of Sant'Agnese in Bologna, and a leaf from a choirbook series from the Dominican nunnery of Santa Maria Maddalena di Val di Pietra in Bologna." - Roncroffi, S. Psallite sapienter. Codice musicali delle Dominicane Bolognesi, Florence, 2009.
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About the sale ENLUMINATIONS, ANCIENT and MODERN BOOKS
Auction location
Auction time 06/17/2026 at 2:00 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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