AN ILLUMINATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT LEAF WITH A FINE MINIATU...

TEXT FROM THE OPENING OF THE PENITENTIAL PSALMS.

      Paris, ca. 1460 120 x 85 mm. (4 3/4 x 3 1/2""). Single column three lines of text on recto 15 on verso in a fine regular gothic book hand. Attractively matted. Verso with four one-line initials as well as three line fillers all in colors and burnished gold the same side with a swirling quarter panel border featuring flowers leaves strawberries and many burnished gold ivy leaves on hairline stems the recto with a large three-line D in blue and white with enclosed scrolling flowered stems the whole on a burnished gold ground; the recto WITH A FULL INHABITED BORDER featuring much acanthus other vegetation and fruit as well as two sprightly birds with flapping wings the border FRAMING AN ARTFUL ARCH-TOPPED ILLUMINATED MINIATURE OF DAVID IN PRAYER (measuring approximately 65 x 42 mm.) the psalmist presented as a king crowned and wearing a wide ermine collar over his pink and blue robes but also as a penitent his harp on the ground before him his hands joined in prayer his face upturned in contemplation of a threatening angel painted in fiery orange and brandishing a sword above a rock formation the foreground filled with bright green grass and shrubs the background well designed to give the illusion of recession in space with the twin-towered gate of a castle and in the further distance a high blue mountain dotted with spires. Slight paint flaking on and near the rock formation (trivial losses elsewhere if one looks very closely) but none of this really noticeable and otherwise in very fine condition--clean bright smooth and with good margins. Despite the rocky outcropping (a concession to the Judaean setting) this miniature suggests the smiling French countryside with which our painter was probably familiar. Many aspects of this excellent miniature are typical and conventional but it is especially successful here in communicating a sense of depth something that is achieved in large part by the artist's use of green chartreuse and blue in the various zones of the receding background. As a result of this sense of perspective the large lone figure of David placed on a path that winds backward toward a vanishing point seems profoundly solitary in a vast landscape. The high level of artistic execution is notable here; especially impressive are the the painter's minute and careful brush strokes in for example the multitude of trees and the architectural detail of the turreted city at the back right. $6250