Beschreibung:

St. Nicholas. Historiated initial from a choir book.
Italy, Monte Oliveto: c. 1472-1473]. On vellum, cut round (68-70 x 66-80 mm), trimmed along the outlines; four staves on the verso with the letters 'ppcs' noted below. Condition : foliage extensions trimmed at the bottom, some loss to burnished gold. Provenance : 1. The choir book from which this miniature comes was produced for the Olivetan monastery of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, near Siena. Some of the manuscripts from Monte Oliveto passed into the possession of the monastery of St. Victor at Milan in 1507 and remained there until 1797. A number of manuscripts from Monte Oliveto are now in the chapter library of the Cathedral of Chiusi (Corali B-N); it is not possible to allocate the present miniature to one of the manuscripts kept there. 2. Abbot Luigi Celotti, sale, Christie's London, 26 May 1825. 3. J. Maddan & Henry Shaw in 1838 these English collectors compiled an album entitled “Illuminated Ornaments selected from Manuscripts of the Middle Ages, extra-illustrated with one hundred and twenty cuttings from manuscripts”: this miniature was one of 20 cuttings from the Celotti sale, and belonged to fol. 17 of the album, according to the summary list in the 1960 Dyson Perrins catalogue. 4. C. W. Dyson Perrins (1864-1958), sale Sotheby's London 29 November 1960, lot 151, then still preserved as part of a collection of twenty-seven miniatures bound in one volume. 5. Alan G. Thomas (1911-1992), who detached the miniatures from the context of the album and sold them separately; some are published in his catalogue 8, London 1961. Sister leaves or miniatures : Only very few of the leaves sold individually by Alan Thomas can be traced today; see 1. St. Lucy, Sotheby's London 23 June 1998, lot 17. 2. Further cuttings which apparently do not originate in the album of Maddan and Shaw, formerly in the Hoepli Collection, Milan (see Toesca, Collezione Hoepli, no. CII, CIII). Illumination : The cutting depicts St. Nicholas with his attribute, the three gold nuggets, in his right hand and the bishop's crook in his left hand. His portrait is framed by a floral border to the left and gold bar borders to the right and at the bottom. The saint is rendered in half-length. He is turned to the right and is wearing an alb and a choir cloak. Such half-length figures are characteristic of miniatures produced by the workshop of the Milan painter Venturino Mercati as are the delicately painted gold clouds which decorated the blue background. The miniaturist paid special attention to the face of St. Nicholas, meticulously depicting his beard and greying temples, and applying equal care to the shaping of the drapery folds of the choir cloak, which are painted with liquid gold. From 1466 until 1476 Venturino Mercati is attested as residing in Chiusi and Siena, where he illuminated the choir books for the Biblioteca Piccolomini (see list in Levi d'Ancona, Wildenstein Collection , 113-199, 117). He was the best-paid painter of the workshop, who worked for the chapter of Siena during these years. Mercati’s reputation provided him with numerous commissions, also outside of Siena. In 1472/1473 and then sporadically until 1480 Mercati also worked as illuminator in Monte Oliveto. The miniature in hand must have been produced in this context. The miniature is unpublished .