Null [ILLUMINATION] [CHOIR BOOK].
Historiated initial V.
Saint John the Baptist …
Description

[ILLUMINATION] [CHOIR BOOK]. Historiated initial V. Saint John the Baptist holding a phylactery From a liturgical manuscript (antiphonary ? gradual ?). Tempera, gouache and gold leaf on parchment. Italy, Lombardy (Milan ?) or Tuscany (Siena ?), circa 1450-1475. Dimensions : 75 x 62 mm Good general condition but burnished gold cracked and some paint chips at the level of the lettering. This very elegant historiated initial recalls the works of Lombard and Milanese painters, in the line of Tomasino da Vimercate (or "Maestro del Libro d'ore di Modena", active in Milan from circa 1390 to 1415) and his followers or the Maestro delle Vitae imperatorum active in Milan. This initial was certainly made later and there are also affinities with the circle of Venturino di Andrea dei Mercati da Milano or sometimes called Venturino Mercati, active in Milan but also associated with Siena and Tuscany (see for example the historiated initials preserved in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum (MS. 199.3-199.9) or his contributions to the choir books of the Cathedral of Chiusi, not far from Siena, as well as to the choir books of the Opera del Duomo in Siena).

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[ILLUMINATION] [CHOIR BOOK]. Historiated initial V. Saint John the Baptist holding a phylactery From a liturgical manuscript (antiphonary ? gradual ?). Tempera, gouache and gold leaf on parchment. Italy, Lombardy (Milan ?) or Tuscany (Siena ?), circa 1450-1475. Dimensions : 75 x 62 mm Good general condition but burnished gold cracked and some paint chips at the level of the lettering. This very elegant historiated initial recalls the works of Lombard and Milanese painters, in the line of Tomasino da Vimercate (or "Maestro del Libro d'ore di Modena", active in Milan from circa 1390 to 1415) and his followers or the Maestro delle Vitae imperatorum active in Milan. This initial was certainly made later and there are also affinities with the circle of Venturino di Andrea dei Mercati da Milano or sometimes called Venturino Mercati, active in Milan but also associated with Siena and Tuscany (see for example the historiated initials preserved in Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum (MS. 199.3-199.9) or his contributions to the choir books of the Cathedral of Chiusi, not far from Siena, as well as to the choir books of the Opera del Duomo in Siena).

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[ENLUMINURE]. Fragment of a choir book (Gradual or Antiphonary?) Historiated Q initial Adoration of the shepherds France, Paris, circa 1530-1540 Anonymous illuminator influenced by the Groupe Etienne Colaud (?) (active in Paris from 1512 to circa 1540) Dimensions: 152 x 170 mm Illumination mounted on a cardboard base, framed in ink and marked "Peinture sur vélin" (size of cardboard base: 186 x 202 mm). This handsome historiated initial can be traced back to the 1520s-1540s. The historiated initial is inscribed in a blue lettering with white highlights, set against a liquid gold background and decorated with vine leaves and floral motifs. This type of motif is found in an Evangeliary preserved at the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève in Paris, MS 106, and is associated with the Colaud group and possibly with an artist known in the archives as Jean Leclerc (?), a collaborator of Etienne Colaud (see M.-B. Cousseau, Enlumineur anonyme (Jean Leclerc?), in Enluminures du Louvre (2011), cat. 127). In some respects, the present illumination recalls the work of an artist identified as Martial Vaillant, son-in-law of Etienne Colaud, documented in Paris since 1523 (he was one of the governors of the Confrérie des Enlumineurs Saint-Jean l'Evangéliste), painter of a Book of Hours for the Dauphin François (Paris, BnF, NAL 104, Heures peintes en deux campagnes, l'une dans les années 1530 et l'autre plus tard dans les années 1550 pour les encadrement ; see M.-B. Cousseau, Etienne Colaud et l'enluminure parisienne sous le règne de François Ier (2016), pp. 87-91). Further research is needed to better identify the illuminator of this initial, which also shows influences from the major artist of these decades, namely Noël Bellemare, whose compositions influenced the artists of the "Colaud group". Expert: Ariane ADELINE