Francesco di Antonio del Chierico

Exhibited by Les Enluminures

Material Illuminated manuscript on parchment

Dimensions 12.6 × 8.5 cm

Place of Creation Italy, Florence

Price Available upon inquiry

Status Vetted

About the Work

Richly illuminated Book of Hours with an unprecedented and strikingly beautiful series of illuminations in which miniscule figures are executed with painstaking detail, often in large empty landscapes or crowded street scenes and surrounded by lush gold decoration. This is a virtuoso performance by a goldsmith-turned illuminator, Francesco del Chierico, pictures which he could have done only with magnification. Was his intention simply to make readers marvel at his prodigious skill or, also, to change the very nature of devotion when image-gazing?

282 leaves (10 blank), complete, collation: i14 , ii-xix10 , xx8, xxi-xxiv10 , xxv4, xxvi-xxviii10 , xxix6, with horizontal catchwords in calligraphic cartouches, 11 lines, ruled in pale brown ink, written-space 58mm. by 44mm., written in dark brown ink in two sizes of a rounded gothic hand, rubrics in red, capitals with calligraphic flourishes and touched in yellow, versa/ initials in red or blue, 2 line initials throughout in blue or bright red with very fine penwork in the contrasting color extending the full height of the pages, FOURTEEN LARGE HISTORIATED [INITIALS, 5 lines high, in very fine leafy designs in full colors on highly burnished gold grounds with partial or full length illuminated borders of very fine leafy and classical designs in colors with tiny highly burnished gold bezants in delicate brown penwork, FIVE VERY LARGE HISTORIATED INITIALS WITHIN FULL HISTORIATED BORDERS, one initial 4 lines high (fol.238v), all others full-width and rather more than half page in size with the opening letters of text in white capitals on vertical panels to the right, the borders including flowers, vases, birds, animals, putti, etc., with burnished gold roundels enclosing small miniatures, very slight spots of rubbing and thumbing to extreme edges of major illuminated pages, other negligible spots of wear, generally in extremely fine fresh condition with wide clean margins. Bound in early nineteenth-century English dark blue morocco gilt, spine in compartments gilt with title "MISSALE," pink paper endleaves, yellow silk markers, edges gilt and gauffered, binding a bit worn, headband nearly broken, in a fitted blue cloth slipcase. Dimensions 126 x 85 mm.

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Provenance

Written and illuminated in Florence. The Calendar includes St. Zenobius “episcopus florentini” (25 May) and SS. Donatus (7 August, bishop of Arezzo) and St. Reparata (8 October, relics in Florence).

Sir John James Smith (1800-1862), 3rd baronet, with his nineteenth-century armorial bookplate as baronet (therefore acquired 1852-62); by descent to the sixth baronet, Sir William John Smith-Marriot (1870-1941); his sale at Sotheby’s London, 31 July 1928, lot 43, to Tregaskis.

Eric George Millar (1887-1966), bought from Tregaskis, 31 July 1928, see his autograph note on the first flyleaf; no.52 in D.H. Turner, “List of the Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts owned by Eric Millar,” The British Museum Quarterly 33 (1968), p.15.

Private Collection, UK, purchased by the owner's father probably from Messrs.Breslauer, possibly from the library of Wilfred Merton (1889-1957).

Sotheby’s London, 18 June 1996, lot 70;

Private European Collection.

Literature

Unpublished.

Related literature:

Garzelli, Annarosa. “Miniatura Fiorentina Del Rinascimento. 1440-1525.” Miniatura Fiorentina Del Rinascimento. 1440-1525, vol. 1, Giunta Regionale Toscana, 1985, pp. 141–142.

Bollati, Milvia, “Francesco di Antonio del Chierico,” in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: Secoli IX-XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milan: Sylvestre Bonnard, 2004), p. 229.