Baldassare Coldiradi (active c. 1470–1500)

Saint Mary Magdalene

Written in Latin, a leaf from an Antiphonal, likely the Feast of Saint Mary Magdalen celebrated on July 22nd, Mulier quae erat in civitate peccatrix

Cremona, Italy, circa 1480-1490

Historiated initial ‘M’, 92 × 95 mm

Tempera, ink, and gold on vellum

$9,500

This richly illuminated initial ‘M’, depicting Saint Mary Magdalene in profile, is the work of Baldassare Coldiradi, a refined Lombard illuminator active in Pavia and Cremona in the last decades of the 15th century. The miniature once formed part of a grand antiphonary, likely produced for a female Augustinian house in Cremona, possibly the convent of Santa Monica. The saint is shown half-length, her golden hair flowing over a red and green mantle, holding the traditional ointment jar with elegant poise. Her profile serene, linear, and noble recalls contemporary medals and panel portraits of northern Italy. The composition reflects Coldiradi’s evolution from the exuberance of Gothic manuscript painting toward the measured harmony of the Renaissance, positioning him as a transitional figure between the late medieval and early modern in Lombard illumination.

On the reverse is a fragmentary line from the chant Mulier quae erat in civitate peccatrix, with music in square notation on red staves; the text is drawn from Luke 7:37, describing the penitent woman who anointed Christ’s feet, a passage traditionally associated with Saint Mary Magdalene and sung at her feast on 22 July.

This miniature has passed through several of the most important collections of illuminated miniature paintings in the modern era. Likely removed from its parent volume in the late 18th century, it probably passed through the hands of the Venetian abbot and dealer Luigi Celotti, whose transactions helped shape numerous English collections. By 1838, it was in the celebrated holdings of William Young Ottley, and was acquired at Sotheby’s by John Rushout, Lord Northwick, a discerning collector of early Italian miniatures. Misidentified as Saint Barbara when sold again at Sotheby’s in 1925, it later entered the American Coella Lindsay Ricketts collection in Chicago, before passing to Austrian collector of Italian miniatures Dr. Friedrich Georg Zeileis, and more recently, the distinguished collector of medieval art and illuminated manuscripts, Dr. Ernst Boehlen of Bern, Switzerland.

Additional fragments from the same manuscript have been identified and studied by Anna Melograni and others. Many of these sister leaves are now preserved in major public collections, including the Louvre, the Free Library of Philadelphia, Oberlin College, and Oxford’s Bodleian Library—a testament to the scale, coherence, and artistic distinction of the original cycle.

PROVENANCE

1. Possibly from the Augustinian nunnery of Santa Monica, Cremona (Palladino, 2003, p. 132).

2. Luigi Celotti (1759–1843), Venetian abbot and art dealer (on whom see Eze, 2016); doubtless sold or traded to:

3. William Young Ottley (1771–1836); sold as part of "Catalogue of the Very Beautiful Collection of Highly Finished and Illumined Miniature Paintings, Property of the Late William Young Ottley, Esq.", Sotheby's, London, May 11, 1838 lot 142, bought for £1 by ‘Northwick’.

4. John Rushout, Lord Northwick (1770–1859); sold as part of The Magnificent Series of Illuminated Miniatures and Initials, the Property of the Late John, Lord Northwick, Sotheby’s, 16 November 1925, part of lot 106 (misidentified as St. Barbara), bought by Maggs.

5. Presumably acquired from Maggs by Coella Lindsay Ricketts (1859–1941), of Chicago (see de Ricci, 1937); a large part, but not all, of whose collection was acquired in 1961 by the Lilly Library, Bloomington.

6. Friedrich Georg Zeileis (b. 1939); included in successive editions of his catalogue (2001–2009), before being deaccessioned.

7. Sold at Christie’s, 12 June 2013, lot 16 (lots 14 and 15 were sister cuttings, one of which is now in the Louvre, Paris); acquired by:

8. Dr. Ernst Boehlen, Bern, S MS 1428.

SISTER LEAVES

1. Philadelphia, USA, Free Library of Philadelphia, Lewis E M 71:1a–c

2. Oberlin, USA, Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1943.17

3. Oxford, UK, Bodleian Library, MS Douce d.13, fols. 11, 16, 19–22

4. Paris, France, Musée du Louvre, Department of Decorative Arts,

5. Unknown location, Private Collection, formerly Christie’s, 12 June 2013, lot 14

LITERATURE

S. de Ricci, Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, I (New York, 1935), p. 632 no. 100.

A. Melograni, ‘Miniature inedite del Quattrocento lombardo nelle collezione americane’, Storia dell’Arte, 82 (1994), pp. 283–302.

A. Melograni, ‘Miniature inedite del Quattrocento lombardo nelle collezione americane [seconda parte]’, Storia dell’Arte, 83 (1995), pp. 5–27.

Friedrich Georg Zeileis, “Più ridon le carte”: Buchmalerei aus Mittelalter und Renaissance: Katalog einer Privatsammlung (Gallspach, 2001), no. 109; (2nd. edn., 2004 ), no. 111; (3rd edn., 2007 and 2009), no. 117.

M.C. Passoni, in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX–XVI, ed. by M. Bollati (Milan, 2004), pp. 167–71

A.-M. Eze, ‘Abbé Luigi Celotti and the Sistine Chapel manuscripts’, Rivista di storia della miniatura, 20 (2016), pp. 139–54.