Beschreibung:

Details
Workshop of Johannes von Valkenburg
St Clare sheltering Franciscan nuns and St Michael vanquishing the Devil, two historiated initials on two leaves from the Clarissan 'Petronilla' Gradual, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Cologne, early 14th century (probably between 1306 and c.1311)]
Two imposing leaves from a known Clarissan Gradual illuminated in Cologne at the turn of the 14th century.
422 x 297 mm, 2 leaves, written with eight lines of text in gothic textura script and music in square notation on four-line red staves, the text comprising (a) the Nativity of the Virgin, the introit ‘Dilexisti iusticiam et odisti iniquitatem’ introduced by a large historiated initial ‘D’ depicting Sts John the Evangelist and St Margaret flanking St Clare, under whose outspread cloak are sheltering six black-clad nuns, and (b) the Dedication of St Michael’s, the introit ‘Benedicite dominum omnes angeli’, introduced by a historiated initial ‘B’ depicting St Michael defeating the dragon (some cockling and staining to margins, lower left corner of leaf (a) lacking and repaired, some ink erosion to the text, remnants of adhesive on reverse). Mounted and framed.
Provenance:
(1) Apparently made for the House of Poor Clares, Cologne, consecrated in 1306, one of the sister leaves having an image of 'Petronilla prima abbatissa', i.e. Petronilla von Scherve, their first abbess, who is not known to have been alive after 1311.
(2) Sulpiz Boisserée (1783–1854), art collector, of Cologne: described as being in his possession in his journal for 16 May 1823; his sale by Lempertz, Bonn, 3–13 November 1854, lot 2166.
(3) Broken up by 1893: the leaves now in Aachen belonged to Dr Peter Wings, who died in that year.
(4) Christie’s, 16 December 1970, lots 4 and 6, bought for £190 and £130 by Scharf.
Sister leaves:
From the 1854 catalogue description we know that the parent volume had 21 miniatures (i.e. historiated initials) with borders. There are a number of leaves that are reliably attributed to the Clarissans of Cologne, but the foliation of the surviving leaves does not make immediate sense, and it suggests that they may have belonged to two or more volumes:
- (f.I) Advent. King David before Christ, adored by a nun identified as 'Petronilla prima abbatissa' (Aachen, Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, NGK 1131.4).
- (f.XIII) Feast of John the Evangelist (27 December). The Last Supper (McCarthy Collection, BM1536).
- (f.XVII) Epiphany. Adoration of the Magi (Aachen, NGK 1132).
- (f.XXIII) Feast of St Michael (29 September). St Michael (one of the present leaves).
- (f.XXIIII) Nativity of St Francis. Francis’s vision (Cologne, Wallraf-Richartz-Museum, GS no. 64)
- (f.XXVIII) Common of Saints, Apostles (Aachen, NGK 1130).
- (f.XLVI) Common of Saints, Confessors. St. Francis and another saint (Venator & Hanstein, 14–15 March 2008, lot 512a-b).
- (no foliation) Office of the Dead. A Clarissan nun on a bier being carried in procession (as above).
- (f.XLVIII) Nativity of the Virgin (8 September). St Clare (one of the the present leaves).
- (f.LXVIII) Easter. The Maries at the Sepulchre, and Noli me tangere (Aachen, NGK 1133).
- (f.LXXXIX) Sunday after Pentecost. Christ Enthroned, adored by nuns (Berlin, Staatliche Museen Preußischer Kulturbesitz, KdZ 1236).
- Feast of Sts Catherine and Barbara (Hanover, Kestner Museum)
Most initials have a kneeling nun in the adjacent margin.
Illumination:
The Cologne Clarissan choirbooks have most recently been studied by Renate Mattick, Johanna Gummlich and Sabine Benecke, but there is disagreement as to their datings and stylistic groupings (a synthesis of their arguments can be found in P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II, p.206). The style of illumination is close to that of the two Cologne Graduals produced by Johannes von Valkenburg, Franciscan scribe and illuminator, in 1299 (Cologne, Diözesan Bibliothek Ms. 1B and Bonn, Universitätsbibliothek Ms. 384), and of two Psalters at the Walters (W.11 and W.41), all of which draw on Liège illumination of the 1280s.
Literature
Renate Mattick, 'Drei Chorbücher aus dem Kölner Klarissenkloster im Besitz von Sulpiz Boisserée', Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch 59, 1998.
Johanna Gummlich-Wagner, 'Neue Zuschreibungen an das Kölner Klarissenskriptorium', Wallraf-Richartz-Jahrbuch LXI, 2000.
Johanna Gummlich-Wagner, Bildproduktion und Kontemplation. Ein Überblick über die Kölner Buchmalerei in der Gotik, Weimar 2003.
Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II: Spanish, English, Flemish, and Central European Miniatures (London, 2019), no. 52.
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