Beschreibung:

THE SPANISH FORGER. Large illuminated miniature on a cutting from a 15th-century manuscript choirbook on vellum [Paris, c.1900] 210 x 157mm. Arch-topped miniature showing a female saint crowning a knight kneeling before her with a wreath, her entourage behind, all standing before a castle, the knight accompanied by his courtiers and soldiers, a boat on the sea in the distance, the whole within a baguette-border, painted on vellum and illuminated with burnished gold; the verso with 4 lines of music of square notation on a 5-line red stave and text in a large gothic hand in brown ink (small areas of loss to gold, some surface abrasion with tiny losses of pigment, a few tiny holes, barely discernable). His identity unknown, the so-called Spanish Forger was active in painting 'medieval' miniatures in Paris at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries (see W. Voelkle, The Spanish Forger , New York, 1987). Although a number of panels and manuscripts are attributed to him, the Forger is mainly known from leaves and cuttings. Painted on segments of vellum from 14th- to 16th-century choirbooks, scraped to provide a new surface, the Forger's works gain athenticity through appearing worn and aged, with signs of abrasion. An illuminator rather than a copyist, he created original compositions executed in his own distinctive style. The present miniature is a fine example, displaying the Forger's narrative vocabulary: the theatrical positioning and gestures of the figures, the stage-like quality of the architecture, stylised landscape and the muted range of colours. The composition is similar to Voelkle P8 and P33.