Beschreibung:

VIRGIN AND CHILD WITH MUSIC-MAKING ANGELS, miniature on vellum. [England late 19th century] 150 x 132mm. The Virgin sits on a grassy bench in front of a cloth of honour, on the left an angel behind the bench offers a white dove to the naked Christ child who sits on the Virgin's knee, on the right an angel holds an open book for the Virgin to read, in the foreground one angel plays a harp and another a dulcimer. A gold-painted mount, framed and glazed. A note on the back of the frame attributes this miniature to the Master of the Grimani Breviary, but rather than the hand of Simon Bening or the Master of James IV of Scotland it appears probable that the miniature was the product of the Gothic Revival and the 19th-century enthusiasm for medieval art. The high quality and accomplished handling suggest that it may be the work of Caleb Wing, the painter who was employed in 1846 by the collector and dealer John Boykett Jarman to restore his flood-damaged manuscripts. So successful was Wing that he went on to produce copies and pastiches of medieval illumination in a wide variety of styles, and his work is now highly sought-after in its own right. Wing painted at least 6 miniatures in the style of Simon Bening to augment a series of 29 cut from one of Jarman's damaged manuscripts (Sotheby's, 25 April 1983, lot 214). This Virgin and Child may be another example of Wing's Flemish manner. J. Backhouse, "A Victorian Connoisseur and His Manuscripts: The Tale of Mr Jarman and Mr Wing", British Museum Quarterly , xxxii (1967-8), pp.76-92 H. Leathlean, "Henry Noel Humphreys and the Getting-up of Books in the Mid-Nineteenth Century", Book Collector , xxxviii, no. 2 (1989)