![CRUCIFIXION, in an historiated initial ‘N’ cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [northern Italy, c.1500]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16018_0029_000(crucifixion_in_an_historiated_initial_n_cut_from_an_illuminated_choirb094308).jpg?w=1)
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CRUCIFIXION, in an historiated initial ‘N’ cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [northern Italy, c.1500]
An affecting initial demonstrating the influence of Andrea Mantegna in northern Italian manuscript illumination.
265 x 175mm. Initial ‘N’ (’Nos autem gloriari oportet’), the introit for the Evening Mass on Maundy Thursday or for the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, verso with two four-line staves of red with square notation and two lines of text (tiny losses from surface of gold and small pigment losses from sky at horizon).
This initial is likely to have come from a Gradual of enormous and imposing size. Several elements of the composition suggest an attribution to an illuminator who knew either directly, or through the medium of prints, the work of Andrea Mantegna: the initial staves with their juxtaposition of linear architectural piers with fruit nestling in foliage could be seen as echoing elements of the setting or compositional framing of works such as the San Zeno altarpiece (in the church of that name in Verona) or the destroyed frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel (Eremitani church, Padua), and the figure of St John is clearly a bulkier version of that saint in Mantegna’s engraving of the Entombment. This points to an origin in north-eastern Italy north of the river Po. The restrained palette – entirely appropriate to the subject matter – distinguishes this initial from the majority of contemporary illumination from this region. The script on the verso is also distinctive: in contrast to the majority of Italian choirbooks it has an angular northern European aspect.
An affecting initial demonstrating the influence of Andrea Mantegna in northern Italian manuscript illumination.
265 x 175mm. Initial ‘N’ (’Nos autem gloriari oportet’), the introit for the Evening Mass on Maundy Thursday or for the Feast of the Invention of the Cross, verso with two four-line staves of red with square notation and two lines of text (tiny losses from surface of gold and small pigment losses from sky at horizon).
This initial is likely to have come from a Gradual of enormous and imposing size. Several elements of the composition suggest an attribution to an illuminator who knew either directly, or through the medium of prints, the work of Andrea Mantegna: the initial staves with their juxtaposition of linear architectural piers with fruit nestling in foliage could be seen as echoing elements of the setting or compositional framing of works such as the San Zeno altarpiece (in the church of that name in Verona) or the destroyed frescoes in the Ovetari Chapel (Eremitani church, Padua), and the figure of St John is clearly a bulkier version of that saint in Mantegna’s engraving of the Entombment. This points to an origin in north-eastern Italy north of the river Po. The restrained palette – entirely appropriate to the subject matter – distinguishes this initial from the majority of contemporary illumination from this region. The script on the verso is also distinctive: in contrast to the majority of Italian choirbooks it has an angular northern European aspect.
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Robert Tyrwhitt