Beschreibung:

The Presentation in the Temple, finely executed High Renaissance miniature on parchment, perhaps always a free standing devotional image [Rome, last quarter of sixteenth century (perhaps soon after 1570)] Large rectangular sheet, finely painted with scene of Mary and Joseph presenting the Christ Child to a priest , before an adoring crowd on the steps of a temple, two doves in the foreground while another descends from above to represent the Holy Spirit, all painted in a bright and vibrant palette, with stippled brushstrokes overlaid to create texture and depth, within a tin gold frame, blank reverse, very slight undulation to parchment, else outstanding condition, leaf 262 by 200mm.; in large carved wooden frame (100mm. wide) Provenance: 1. Estelle L. Doheny (1875-1958) of Camarillo, California; her second sale at Christie's, 2 December 1987, lot 178. 2. Bernard H. Breslauer (1918-2004), noted book and manuscript dealer, acquired at the Doheny sale; this from his private collection of manuscript illuminations, these exhibited in the Pierpont Morgan Museum and published by W.M. Voekle and R.S. Wieck, The Bernard H. Breslauer Collection of Manuscript Illuminations , 1992, with the present miniature as no. 93. Offered in his sale in Christie's, 11 December 2002, lot 14, but unsold there and thereafter sold privately to its current owner. 3. Last offered in Sotheby's, Old Master Drawings, 6 July 2004, lot 2. Illumination: When purchased by Breslauer, this miniature was attributed to the circle of Giulio Clovio (1498-1578), arguably the greatest illuminator of the Italian Renaissance. The palette, consummate skill of the artist and preponderance of architectural features such as long tall columns to divide up the scenes and draw the eye upwards to the detailed backgrounds, do lead back to his work. The exhibition catalogue for the Pierpont Morgan Museum then noted that the scene was in the main based on a print produced by Cornelis Cort in 1570 (1533-78), itself following 'The Presentation of the Virgin in the Temple' by Taddeo Zuccari ( The Illustrated Bartsch , LII: 29, no. 21; with the Zuccari illumination now Musée des Beaux-Arts, Besançon, inv. no. 1423: see C.A. Luchinat, Taddeo e Federico Zuccaro , Milan 1998, I: 283, n. 77). Here what is novel in the scene is the substitution of the Holy Family for the Virgin and the addition of the three doves - the Morgan exhibition catalogue noting that the two in the foreground are usually carried into the scene as a sacrificial offering. However, it is striking that features such as the priest with his long face with high cheekbones and a straggling beard are markedly close to those elsewhere found in Clovio's work (see Les Enluminures du Louvre , 2011, no. 63, where the same figure appears on the right looking out and away from the scene), yet are darkened and all but obscured in Cort's print. As noted in the Morgan exhibition catalogue, Rome in the second half of the sixteenth provided multiple points of interaction between illuminators and printmakers with models and scenes flowing in both directions, with both Clovio and Frederico Zuccari (Taddeo's brother) commissioning Cort to make prints of some of their works, and those artists in turn frequently picking up and adapting scenes from prints. This miniature is the same grand size as the print, and clearly descends from it. It is perhaps a personal commission by a skilled Roman artist, perhaps taught by Clovio himself and perhaps a member of his immediate circle, to render Cort's print in paint on parchment as a private devotional image.