Fra Girolamo da Milano, or the Olivetan Master (active 1425-50) - photo 1

Fra Girolamo da Milano, or the Olivetan Master (active 1425-50)

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£ 5 040
Auction dateClassic
13.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 1105600
Lot 12 | Fra Girolamo da Milano, or the Olivetan Master (active 1425-50)
Fra Girolamo da Milano, or the Olivetan Master (active 1425-50)

The Virgin and Child blessing a group of Olivetan monks, historiated initial ‘A’ cut from an illuminated Psalter on vellum [Lombardy, c.1440]

A charming and engaging example of the work of Fra Girolamo da Milano - also known as the Olivetan Master - from a manuscript produced for an Olivetan monastery.



101 x 103mm. Historiated initial 'A' perhaps opening 'Assumpta est Maria', reverse scrubbed but with 3 lines of text and a red rubric visible (a few losses of pigment to the shawl of the Virgin, some smudging of pink on the robes of the Olivetan monks). Mounted and framed. Provenance: From a mid-20th century American collection.



Illumination:

The miniature, with the soft modelling of faces and drapery, the pastel colors, the full faces of the figures and the large size of the baby Jesus (all features which are deeply rooted in the style of Michelino da Besozzo), is the work of Fra Girolamo da Milano, one of the dominant illuminators of the Lombard Quattrocento. Until his real name was discovered, Girolamo was known as the Olivetan Master, because a very large cutting of a historiated initial in the Cini Collection, Venice, is signed by him as ‘a certain brother of the Olivetan Order’ and dated 1439 (see Le miniature della Fondazione Giorgio Cini: pagine, ritagli, manoscritti, ed. by Massimo Medica and F. Toniolo (exh. cat. Milano, 2016), no 153). The identification of the Olivetan Master as Frater Ieronimus / Fra Girolamo was made by Anna Melograni, 'Appunti di miniatura lombarda. Ricerche sul "Maestro delle Vitae Imperatorum,"' Storia dell'arte, 70 (1990), pp.273-75. For a more extensive study of this master see Melograni, 'I corali quattrocenteschi della Collegiata di S. Lorenzo a Voghera,' Storia dell'arte, 75 (1992), pp.117-64.



Stylistically and compositionally comparable (with the figures blessing all enclosed in the upper part of the miniature by a semi-circular band) and perhaps from the same book are an initial 'D' from a Psalter with the Baptism of Christ at the Morgan Library, MS M.558.2; an initial 'C' with King David and Saints praising God, once in the Gambier-Parry collection and now at the Courtauld Institute of Art; and an initial 'O' with God blessing Olivetan monks, once in the S. Law collection and sold recently by Salamon Gallery (the composition of the latter is almost identical). On the first two cuttings see A. Stones, 'An Italian Miniature in the Gambier-Parry Collection', The Burlington Magazine, Vol. 111, no 790 (1969), pp.7-12.

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