Master of Sant’Agnese (active end of 13th-beginning of 14th century)
DOMINIC ADDRESSING DOMINICAN NUNS, initial ‘M’ on a choirbook leaf [Bologna, c. 1300]
A wonderfully preserved historiated initial by the Master of Sant’Agnese of Bologna, named by Fabrizio Lollini after his work in three choirbooks in Bologna’s Museo Civico Medievale (cod. 519, 520 and 521), part of a single commission executed around 1300 for the Dominican nuns of Sant’Agnese.
A gradual held by the Museo Nazionale della Musica in Bologna (Ms. Lit 4) has been added to the corpus: at least nine leaves are known to have been excised and to exist both in private collections and at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts (see Gaudenz Freuler,
Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, Milan 2013, pp. 190-205, for discussion). The style of the present initial is typical of the Sant’Agnese Master: the large simplified and static figures of Dominic and the nuns are instilled with the statuesque presence of icons, and show the continued influence of the so-called ‘Second Style’ developed by the Girona Master (fl. 1260-1290) and Jacopino da Reggio (fl. 1265- c. 1300), while the strong blue of the ground, juxtaposed with the paler pink, grey, and green of the initial and the figures that populate it, is typical of Bolognese illumination at the turn of the century.
Provenance:
•Perhaps once part of the same choirbook as lot 7.
•Hoepli, Milan, 11-12 June 1929, lot 17.
•Private collection, London.
Leaf: 518 x 360mm, initial: 120 x 100mm,the initial ‘M’ opening first response for the first nocturn of Matins from the Feast of St Dominic, ‘Mundum vocans ad agni nuptias’. Mounted.
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Please note this lot is the property of a private consignor.