Cristoforo Cortese

A Saint

Written in Latin, a fragment from a Gradual, likely the Introit for the Feast of the Common Martyrs, Justi epulentur… (The righteous shall feast…)

Northern Italy, Venice, circa 1420

Overall dimensions, 445 x 195 mm.

Historiated initial “I”, 105 x 97 mm.

Rastrum, 25 mm. with seven 4-lined staves in red ink

Tempera, ink and gold on parchment

$17,000

Painted by the famed Venetian artist Cristoforo Cortese, a Saint announces himself from behind an initial I for Justis. Surrounded by bright pigments of yellow and red on a blue background, this lively Saint is framed by curly leaves with drops of liquid gold dotted around the initial. This leaf has all the hallmarks of Cortese’s dynamic skills of interpreting emotion with his brush. There are sister leaves in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London and in the Free Library of Philadelphia, USA. His creativity here and in the figures and scenes in the surviving leaves from his Gradual manuscript are connected to a Camaldolese monastery on the island of Murano.

PROVENANCE

1. USA, private collection, (early 20th Century framing tag, S.Schwartz picture frames, 128 W 42nd Street, New York, with a note pasted in the back of the frame “This fragment is old German. The miniature is a perfect work of art. Age no less 500 years.”).

SISTER LEAVES AND FRAGMENTS

Saint Peter, initial ‘C’, (Cognovi Domine…, Introit for the Common of a Confessor not a Bishop), London, Victoria and Albert Museum, D.637A-1894.

Prophet in an initial ‘E’, (Ego clamavi quoniam exaudisti me…, Introit for Tuesday of the 3rd Week of Lent), London, Victoria and Albert Museum, D.637B-1894.

Saint, initial ‘G’, and Saint, initial ‘S’, (Salus autem iustorum…, Introit for the Common of Martyrs, and fragmentary Gloria), Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E M 25:21 and Lewis E M 45:13.

Bearded Apostle, initial ‘T’, and Standing Saint, initial ‘E’, (London, Sotheby’s, 5 December 2006, lots 68–69; ex-F.G. Zeileis Collection; see G. Zeileis, “Più ridon le carte,” no. 11).

Entry into Jerusalem, initial ‘D’, (Palm Sunday, Introit Domine ne longe facias), Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Marlay Cutting It. 20.

Prophet, initial ‘C’, Bologna, Museo Civico Medievale (attribution under review).

Bearded Bishop with a Book, initial ‘S’, (London, Sotheby’s, 22 June 2004, lot 23).

A Prophet, initial ‘D’, and St. Paul, initial ‘S’, (Dum medium silentium…, Introit for the Octave of Christmas, and Scio cui credidi…, Introit for the Feast of St. Paul, June 29), Les Enluminures, Paris, MIN 18-30 & 50012.

Prophet, initial ‘C’, (Loquetur Dominus pacem…, Introit for Ss. Gervasius & Protasius, June 19), Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, inv. 04285b.

Saint in an initial ‘S’, (Suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuam…, Introit for the Purification of the Virgin, Feb. 2), Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, inv. 04285c.

Prophet in an initial ‘D’, (Suscepimus Deus misericordiam tuam…, Introit for the 8th Sunday after Pentecost), Museum of Decorative Arts, Prague, inv. 04285a.

Prophet in an initial ‘D’, (Dominus illuminatio mea…, Introit for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost), London, Maggs Bros., stock no. 247462.

LITERATURE

F. Todini, ed., Una collezione di miniature Italiane, vol. 2, 1994, no. VII.

M. Bollati, Dalla Bibbia di Corradino a Jacopo della Quercia. Sculture miniature italiane del Medioevo e del Rinascimento, ed. A. Bacchi, Milan, 1997, pp. 128-129.

G. Freuler, Tendencies of Gothic in Florence: Don Silvestro dei Gherarducci, Corpus of Florentine Painting IV, vol. 7, part 2, Florence, 1997.

G. Zeileis, “Più ridon le carte”: Buchmalerei aus Mittelalter und Renaissance: Katalog einer Privatsammlung von illuminierten Einzelblättern, 2009 [2004], no. 11.

S. Panayotova, “Cristoforo Cortese in Cambridge,” Miniatura. Lo sguardo e la parola: Studi in onore di Giordana Mariani Canova, ed. F. Toniolo and Gennaro Toscano, Milan, 2012, pp. 186-189.