Workshop of Boccardino il Vecchio - photo 1
Workshop of Boccardino il Vecchio - photo 2

Workshop of Boccardino il Vecchio

Lot 20
13.12.2023 11:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 8 190
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1105562
Lot 20 | Workshop of Boccardino il Vecchio
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Workshop of Boccardino il Vecchio

St Dominic, initial 'I' cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [Florence, c.1490]

A handsome and highly decorative initial characteristic of Florentine illumination of the latter part of the 15th century.



400 x 150mm overall, irregularly cut at right edge (slight surface abrasions). St Dominic, shown within a roundel on the initial, makes it likely that it came from a choirbook made for a Dominican church. The Evangelist's eagle in the roundel above the initial may indicate that the chant opened with the beginning of the Gospel of John, 'In principio'.



Provenance:

Christie's, 21 November 2012, lot 9.



Illumination:

The use of golden sprays and white flowers to decorate dark grounds is closely comparable to that found in manuscripts from the workshop of Giovanni di Giuliano Boccardi (1460-1529), known as Boccardino il Vecchio, 'one of the last representatives of the golden age of Florentine renaissance illumination'. As well as working on grand liturgical manuscripts for ecclesiastic patrons, Boccardino counted Matthias Corvinus and Lorenzo il Magnifico among his princely clients, and it is in his works of the 1490s for these that the closest analogies with the present manuscript are found: the cameo panel among flower-sprays and renaissance motifs of the border can be matched in humanistic codices made for the Hungarian king, such as the Philostratus (Budapest, N. Széchényi Lib, Cod. lat. 417), as well as devotional manuscripts for the de' Medici, such as the Hours of Laudomia de' Medici, Lorenzo's daughter (London, BL, Yates Thompson 30).

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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