Spanish illuminator - photo 1
Spanish illuminator - photo 2

Spanish illuminator

Lot 41
10.12.2025 12:00UTC +00:00
Classic
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CHRISTIE'S
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1514467
Lot 41 | Spanish illuminator
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Spanish illuminator
The Nativity, historiated initial 'T' cut from a gargantuan choirbook on vellum [Spain, possibly Granada, Monastery of Baza?, c.1510]
A vivid and richly illuminated Nativity scene from a gargantuan Spanish choirbook, perhaps one of the series produced in Granada for the monastery of San Jeronimo de Baza, displaying Flemish taste in 16th-century Spain.

300 x 214mm. The historiated initial 'T' opening the response to the second vespers for Mass on Christmas Day 'Te cum principium in die virtutis', reverse with two visible lines of text and music on a 5-line stave (losses of pigment, particularly involving the green, on the left-hand side of the initial, a few losses to the robe of the Virgin and to the brick wall behind her).

Illumination:
The style of the ornamentation, with the characteristic tracing of the initial ending in zoomorphic heads, the bi-colored geometrical borders lining the limits of initial, and the figures with striking facial traits are very close to another Nativity sold at Christie's on 29 June 1994, from the series of choirbooks produced for the monastery of San Jeronimo de Baza. That leaf bore the arms of Enrique Enriquez, quarterly, 1 and 4 Leon mantelé of Castile, 2 and 3 gules crescent reversed and champagne ardent. Enrique Enriquez was a descendant of the royal line of Henriquez and the brother of Queen Joanna, spouse of King John II of Aragon and the uncle of the famous Ferdinand or Fernando II of Castile who reconquered the Moorish Kingdom of Granada between 1482 and 1492 (see J. O’Callaghan, The Last Crusade in the West : Castile and the Conquest of Granada, 2014). The Royal Chapel in Granada is the burial place of Queen Isabela I and King Ferdinand. Don Enrique died in 1504 and his wife Maria de Luna died at Baza in 1530.

There is unmistakable Flemish influence in the forward pitch of the Madonna, reminiscent of comparable scenes by the Master of James IV of Scotland (see for example British Library, Add. MS. 35313 and the Grimani Breviary).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
Preview
10.12.2025 – 10.12.2025
Phone +44 (0)20 7839 9060
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