Beschreibung:

King David writing as God appears to him, in a large initial on a leaf from an illuminated manuscript Choir Psalter, in Latin on vellum. Northern Italy (probably Ferrara, or vicinity), c. 1450. Single column, 18 lines of text, simple initials in red and blue, a very large initial formed of tight twists of pink and green acanthus leaves with flower heads at their midpoints, with the saint seated at a desk in a grassy landscape before a starry sky, writing on a scroll as God appears to him, the whole initial on a burnished gold ground with trilobed notches taken out of its edges, with a three-quarter border of scrolling and interlacing coloured white-vine-like foliage on brightly coloured and gold grounds, enclosing the attributes of three of the Apostles (eagle holding a scroll, an angel and a winged lion, twice), several naked putti and a roundel enclosing Christ carrying the Cross, the borders within gold frames. Reverse with 17 lines of text in two sizes of script with red and blue initials. Leaf: 509x350 mm and initial: 110x110 mm. Some discolouration and wear to edges of leaf, and reverse scuffed, splits in edges repaired with modern tape, else good condition. The decoration of liturgical books with vividly coloured white-vine-like borders containing roundels and scenes and numerous putti focusses on the output of Ferrara in the middle of the fifteenth century (compare G.M. Canova, La Miniatura a Ferrara, 1998, nos.63 and 16, as well as 17). Somewhat similar borders formed of acanthus leaves do sporadically occur in liturgical books from other centres, such as Romagna (see Palladino, Treasures of a Lost Art, 2003, no. 51), but the sharp-tongued flowers at the apex of the historiated initial and trilobed shapes cut out of the edge of the gold grounds here point firmly to Ferrarese models (see Canova, no. 17, and T. Kren and K. Barstow, Italian Illuminated Manuscripts in the J. Paul Getty Museum, 2005, p.48). We would like to thank Dr. Timothy Bolton for his cataloguing of the present lot. Photo.