Master of the Choirbooks of Urbino - photo 1
Master of the Choirbooks of Urbino - photo 2

Master of the Choirbooks of Urbino

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£ 5 040
Auction dateClassic
13.12.2023 11:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
Archive
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Archive
ID 1105685
Lot 7 | Master of the Choirbooks of Urbino
Master of the Choirbooks of Urbino

A Bishop Saint, historiated initial on a leaf from an Antiphonal, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Urbino?, c.1350]

An extremely rare example of illumination from the Marche of the first half of the 14th century, influenced by Venturella di Pietro and Vanni di Baldolo.



544 x 371mm. The historiated initial 'E' opening the Common of One Confessor 'Euge serve bone fidelis'; 6 lines of text and music, rubrics in red, penwork initials in blue with red flourishing or red with purple flourishing, foliated 248 in upper left margin (some marginal thumbing, small loss of gold to the halo, else in excellent condition).



Provenance:

Gaudenz Freuler has identified a sister leaf in a 'Glorification of the Franciscan Order' sold in Milan, Cambi, 18 November 2014, lot 279 and a number of other leaves from a Gradual perhaps produced in the same workshop in Umbria or the Marche (on these see G. Freuler, The McCarthy Collection: Italian and Byzantine Miniatures, 2018, I, no 72, pp.228-229, the present leaf mentioned and illustrated).



Illumination:

The leaf is from one of the choirbooks now in the Museo Diocesano Albani in Urbino (corali 9 and 10, published in G.M. Fachechi, 'Proposte per lo studio della miniatura "marchigiana"', ll Maestro Campodonico, 1998, pp.102-113), illuminated by the so-called Master of the Urbino Choirbooks. Characteristic are his elongated faces, his haloes with dotted outlines, and the symmetrical rendering of the robes. The Master clearly has Perugian roots that display a striking familiarity with the work of early Vanni di Baldolo, most evidently in the bold figure of the Bishop with his elongated face, which draws on models developed in Vanni's workshop in the 1330s, influenced by Venturella di Pietro and Meo da Siena's paintings, but other common Umbrian stylistic features (such as the shape of the foliate extensions) are here lacking.

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