![DAVID IN PRAYER, historiated initial 'N' cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [Ferrara, c.1455-60]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16018_0020_000(david_in_prayer_historiated_initial_n_cut_from_an_illuminated_choirboo094108).jpg?w=1)
Details
DAVID IN PRAYER, historiated initial 'N' cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [Ferrara, c.1455-60]
A splendid and colourful example of Ferrarese Renaissance book painting.
155 x 165mm. Verso with two short staves with square notation on a red stave (tiny loss of gold in upper right hand corner, lower right and upper left corners slightly wrinkled). Mounted and framed.
The style of the figures and the foliage decoration in a symphony of pinks, blues and greens firmly place the artist within the Ferrarese tradition of the mid-15th century, defined in particular by the team of illuminators responsible for what was most probably the most luxurious and extravagant manuscript of the time, the Bible of Borso d'Este, a high-point of Renaissance manuscript illumination. Gaudenz Freuler has indentified the artist of the present cutting as the fourth Master of Plutarch's Vitae (Cesena, Biblioteca Malatestiana, S. XV. 2): strong parallels can be drawn, for example, between the figures in the present miniature and those of the Gracchi brothers on f.127 of the Cesena manuscript. We see the same foreshortened faces, similarly close eyes, and prominent noses.
A splendid and colourful example of Ferrarese Renaissance book painting.
155 x 165mm. Verso with two short staves with square notation on a red stave (tiny loss of gold in upper right hand corner, lower right and upper left corners slightly wrinkled). Mounted and framed.
The style of the figures and the foliage decoration in a symphony of pinks, blues and greens firmly place the artist within the Ferrarese tradition of the mid-15th century, defined in particular by the team of illuminators responsible for what was most probably the most luxurious and extravagant manuscript of the time, the Bible of Borso d'Este, a high-point of Renaissance manuscript illumination. Gaudenz Freuler has indentified the artist of the present cutting as the fourth Master of Plutarch's Vitae (Cesena, Biblioteca Malatestiana, S. XV. 2): strong parallels can be drawn, for example, between the figures in the present miniature and those of the Gracchi brothers on f.127 of the Cesena manuscript. We see the same foreshortened faces, similarly close eyes, and prominent noses.
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