Looking at leaves and cuttings recently at the V&A Museum I looked again at one I had not seen in person for more than a decade:
Wednesday, 24 August 2016
Saturday, 6 August 2016
Full-Page Crucifixion from a Missal(?) dated 1480
UPDATE, 5 Sept 2016
I now have some slightly better, and significantly larger, images (click each image to see the large versions):
It no longer looks as if John has a large halo, but it is clear the Christ does have one.
The Cross is 'T'-shaped.
Mary is wearing a veil and has her hand to her cheek.
John appears to have his hands clasped in front of his chest.
A skull is clearly visible at the foot of the Cross.
There is a coiling acanthus border around the image.
--------------------------
[original post:]
The blurry images above are variants of my only visual evidence for the appearance of a large full-page miniature from the same Christie's sale as in a previous post.
It appears that Mary has her left hand to her cheek, and it looks as though John has an unusually large halo, or perhaps there is a figure standing behind him wearing a pale cloak.
Here is the Christie's description:
Even though the image is not at all clear, the presence of the date "1480" and letters "J.K." should make a definitive identification possible. If anyone has a better image, or knows where this leaf is now, please let me know.
I now have some slightly better, and significantly larger, images (click each image to see the large versions):
It no longer looks as if John has a large halo, but it is clear the Christ does have one.
The Cross is 'T'-shaped.
Mary is wearing a veil and has her hand to her cheek.
John appears to have his hands clasped in front of his chest.
A skull is clearly visible at the foot of the Cross.
There is a coiling acanthus border around the image.
--------------------------
[original post:]
The blurry images above are variants of my only visual evidence for the appearance of a large full-page miniature from the same Christie's sale as in a previous post.
It appears that Mary has her left hand to her cheek, and it looks as though John has an unusually large halo, or perhaps there is a figure standing behind him wearing a pale cloak.
Here is the Christie's description:
Even though the image is not at all clear, the presence of the date "1480" and letters "J.K." should make a definitive identification possible. If anyone has a better image, or knows where this leaf is now, please let me know.
Monday, 1 August 2016
Unidentified Heraldry, Perhaps of a Patron Named Anthony or a Knight of the Order of Saint Anthony?
Beth Morrison at the Getty Museum hopes that someone can identify the heraldry that appears several times in the borders of their manuscript of the Invention et translation du corps de Saint Antoine:
Thursday, 28 July 2016
Bolognese Miniature: What is it, and Where is it?
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| [Click for a larger image] |
Wednesday, 27 July 2016
Medieval Manuscripts Questions ... And Answers?
I have often thought that it would be a good idea to have a site like CERL's "Can You Help?": this allows people to seek help in identifying the provenance of (mainly printed) books. It seems to me that there should be another version of this concept, tailored for those of us interested mainly in medieval manuscripts, and addressing a wider range of questions.
Such a site could set out to address different kinds of questions, such as:
As an experiment, I therefore thought that I would start a new blog, where I would post occasional questions of my own, and also those of anyone who sends them to me. In particular, I currently need help identifying and locating some manuscript leaves and cuttings -- for reasons I will reveal later in the year -- of which I only have old photographs. I think that there is a very good chance that readers will recognise some of them.
I will start by posting a few of my own questions, as examples, but welcome submissions from readers for me to post on their behalf. Please fill out the Contact form below, or email your questions to me at MSSQuestions@manuscripts.org.uk with the following:
Such a site could set out to address different kinds of questions, such as:
- dating or localising a manuscript by its script or decoration
- identifying artists or scribes
- identifying unusual iconography
- reading difficult handwriting or partially erased inscriptions
- identifying the text of a fragment
- interpreting provenance evidence such as heraldry
- and so on.
As an experiment, I therefore thought that I would start a new blog, where I would post occasional questions of my own, and also those of anyone who sends them to me. In particular, I currently need help identifying and locating some manuscript leaves and cuttings -- for reasons I will reveal later in the year -- of which I only have old photographs. I think that there is a very good chance that readers will recognise some of them.
I will start by posting a few of my own questions, as examples, but welcome submissions from readers for me to post on their behalf. Please fill out the Contact form below, or email your questions to me at MSSQuestions@manuscripts.org.uk with the following:
- a title in the form of short summary of your question
- a photograph of the manuscript in question, of adequate size and quality
- all known relevant contextual information (e.g. present location, link to online description or images, recent publications, etc.)
- a series of terms that I can use as tags to make your query findable as the number of blog-posts grows, including if possible the physical form, country, century, language if not Latin, and genre of expertise needed, e.g.:
- fragment, Italy, 13th-cent., iconography
- codex, France, 12th-cent., localisation
- cutting, England, 13th?-cent., date
- miniature, Netherlands, 15th-cent., attribution
- leaf, Germany, 14th-cent., heraldry
I may edit your text and your photo for clarity, and change the tags. If I get a cluster of new enquiries in quick succession, I may spread-out their posting over a longer period.
I will not post questions if it seems that the enquirer is just too lazy to do some basic checking, or if it seems that they are trying to get help with school homework!
I will not post questions if it seems that the enquirer is just too lazy to do some basic checking, or if it seems that they are trying to get help with school homework!
I will leave Comments open, so anyone who provides answers will get public recognition for their contributions, but I will moderate them, so that subscribers do not receive spam. Apologies in advance if your comment does not get published quickly; this may be due to time-zone differences, etc.
I will use a tag "unsolved" for questions that require more input and "solved" if a question is definitively answered: this will allow people to filter searches only for unsolved/solved questions.
I will use a tag "unsolved" for questions that require more input and "solved" if a question is definitively answered: this will allow people to filter searches only for unsolved/solved questions.
If the Comments on a particular question become numerous I will try to summarise the current state of knowledge near the top of the post, so that readers do not spend time re-doing work that has already been done by someone else.
I welcome suggestions for how to improve the usefulness of this experiment.
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