6556 - Bellemare Group

Bellemare Group The Circumcision of Christ. Opaque pigments, rich gold highlights, likely with a later black brush outline, on parchment mounted on wood. 15.3 x 10.5 cm. Circa 1545/50. Like the previous lot number, this miniature by an illuminator of the Bellemare Group also draws on Nordic pictorial traditions. In this case, the direct source can be identified. The composition of the “Circumcision of Christ” is based on a woodcut by Wolf Huber from ca. 1512/13 (Hollstein 3). The Gothic church interior, with a view of a rood screen and the apse behind it, was reproduced with particular precision; whereas the ensemble of figures in the woodcut finds occasional exact correspondences in the miniature, it was generally expanded and varied in favor of a scene with more figures. Furthermore, the illuminator stretches the seemingly squat architecture of the print upward, lending the depiction a far more elegant character. The frame in this case also corresponds to the richly decorated scrollwork borders in the Fontainebleau style that characterized numerous works by the Bellemare group beginning in the 1540s. The present framing is adorned on the sides with naturalistic lapis lazuli cameos and baskets of fruit, similar to those found on the borders of the magnificent *Recueil des rois de France* at the National Library of France (see BnF, MS. fr. 2848, fol. 45bis v, 50v, 90r), on which leading artists of the group, such as the Master of Henry II, worked. In summary, the two miniatures presented here represent an important link between the group’s early workshop activity under Bellemare and the manuscripts produced later, beginning in the 1540s. They are the result of the work of an illuminator who, on the one hand, followed the workshop’s typical practice of reusing older compositional models and consequently had access to the studio’s repertoire of models, but who, on the other hand, combined his depictions with Mannerist elements that point beyond Bellemare’s time. We thank Dr. Elizabeth L’Estrange, Birmingham, for valuable insights. Provenance: Edmond Lévy-Ditisheim (1896–1988), Basel. Passed down through inheritance to a private collection in Germany. - Please request condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.