Neri da Rimini (fl. 1300-1338)
ST DOMINIC TEACHING, initial ‘O’ cut from a choirbook [Rimini, first quarter 14th C]
A charming little miniature attributable to Neri da Rimini, one of the first exponents of Gothic miniature painting in Italy and an enthusiastic assimilator of Giotto's expressive style.

The body of the initial, with its palette of pinks, reds and greys, set within a concave-edged blue square with white filigree decoration is typical of Rimini decoration of the period, and is entirely analogous to the group of cuttings and leaves attributed to Neri da Rimini and identified in Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, pp.15-19, including two fragments in the Chester Beatty Library, Dublin; two in a private European collection (labelled 5a and 5b) and one in the Cini Collection, Venice. Typical of Neri's style is the expressive and formal vocabulary mixed with linear elements derived from Bolognese illumination: all features present in the representation of St Dominic.

Neri's earliest recorded work is a Christ in Majesty in the Cini Collection, Venice (2030), signed and dated 1300. Gaudenz Freuler has recently linked the Cini leaf to a number of other early leaves and initials attributed to Neri (G. Freuler, Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, Milan 2013, pp. 214-227), but it seems that the present cutting, with its simpler composition and expansive forms, belongs to Neri's late production, more closely associable to the group of fragments dated 1310-15 by Robert Gibbs (in Neri da Rimini: il Trecento riminese tra pittura e scrittura, exhibition catalogue, 1995, pp. 124-31).

Provenance:
•Private collection, London. The present cutting was published by F. Lollini, 'Postilla a Neri da Rimini', Romagna arte e storia, no 35, 1992, pp. 39-42.

101 x 75mm. 4-line stave in red on verso. Mounted.

Please note this lot is the property of a private consignor.

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