![A ZOOMORPHIC INITIAL 'F' cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [Franconia or Alsace, mid-13th century]](https://www.christies.com/img/LotImages/2018/CKS/2018_CKS_16019_0004_000(a_zoomorphic_initial_f_cut_from_an_illuminated_choirbook_on_vellum_fra070300).jpg?w=1)
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A ZOOMORPHIC INITIAL 'F' cut from an illuminated choirbook on vellum [Franconia or Alsace, mid-13th century]
A highly decorative 13th-century zoomorphic initial.
80 x 80mm. Inhabited initial 'F' (the descender cut off). Laid down on cardboard, framed.
Provenance: (1) Madame Fould; her anonymous sale (as ‘Madame X’), Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6 December 1926, part of lot 4, together with a historiated initial ‘A’, now McCarthy Coll. (2) Robert Lehman (1892-1969; New York banker, art collector, and philanthropist); his MS 89 (de Ricci, Census, II, p.1707); his collection on deposit at The Metropolitan Museum; sold en bloc to J. Günther in 2004 and bought by the present owner in 2005.
This cutting is extremely similar to examples from the collections of John Ruskin (see J.S. Dearden, The Library of John Ruskin, 2012, p.180 no.1388) and Eric Korner (his sale Sotheby's, 19 June 1990, lot 4). The Korner initial was tentatively attributed to Alsace by comparison with the Schernberg Psalter (Donaueschingen sale at Sotheby's, 21 June 1982, lot 11); there are also stylistic similarities to manuscripts from places further east, including Bamberg and Würzburg (cf. Swarzenski, Die lateinischen illuminierten Handschriften, 1936). Further related initials have been sold at auction: Sotheby's, 16 May 1955, lots 74 and 76 (bought by Alan Thomas); Sotheby's, 18 June 1991, lot 5; and Sotheby's, 5 December 2000, lot 8 (now Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire). It is likely that all of these, along with the present cutting, come from a single manuscript, which must have been dismembered before 1900.
A highly decorative 13th-century zoomorphic initial.
80 x 80mm. Inhabited initial 'F' (the descender cut off). Laid down on cardboard, framed.
Provenance: (1) Madame Fould; her anonymous sale (as ‘Madame X’), Galerie Georges Petit, Paris, 6 December 1926, part of lot 4, together with a historiated initial ‘A’, now McCarthy Coll. (2) Robert Lehman (1892-1969; New York banker, art collector, and philanthropist); his MS 89 (de Ricci, Census, II, p.1707); his collection on deposit at The Metropolitan Museum; sold en bloc to J. Günther in 2004 and bought by the present owner in 2005.
This cutting is extremely similar to examples from the collections of John Ruskin (see J.S. Dearden, The Library of John Ruskin, 2012, p.180 no.1388) and Eric Korner (his sale Sotheby's, 19 June 1990, lot 4). The Korner initial was tentatively attributed to Alsace by comparison with the Schernberg Psalter (Donaueschingen sale at Sotheby's, 21 June 1982, lot 11); there are also stylistic similarities to manuscripts from places further east, including Bamberg and Würzburg (cf. Swarzenski, Die lateinischen illuminierten Handschriften, 1936). Further related initials have been sold at auction: Sotheby's, 16 May 1955, lots 74 and 76 (bought by Alan Thomas); Sotheby's, 18 June 1991, lot 5; and Sotheby's, 5 December 2000, lot 8 (now Strasbourg, Bibliothèque nationale et universitaire). It is likely that all of these, along with the present cutting, come from a single manuscript, which must have been dismembered before 1900.
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Robert Tyrwhitt