Beschreibung:

Details
Follower of the Master of Anna Sforza (Protasio Crivelli
God the Father above a temple, historiated initial cut from an illuminated manuscript choirbook on vellum [Lombardy (Milan), late 15th century]
A bright and attractive Renaissance cutting, with very unusual iconography, in fine condition
145 x 147mm, a cutting, the initial ‘T’ containing a very unusual image of a Renaissance church façade incorporating coloured marbles and cameo-like profile and frontal heads, with a triple portal, their porches each with a ceiling of gold stars on a deep blue ground, God apparently enthroned on the roof with a gold cupola and heavenly clouds behind him, holding an orb and blessing, all set within a landscape with a river, probably from the antiphon ‘Terribilis est locus iste’ for the Dedication of a Church, the reverse with a fragment of text probably from the same feast: ‘Susce[pimus deus misericordiam tuam in medio templi tui …]’, and with a modern Amsterdam shipper’s label (the image closely cropped with the loss of part of the initial, minor losses of the surrounding gold). Mounted and framed.
Illumination:
The style is related to that of the Master of Anna Sforza, recently identified as a documented scribe and artist, Protasio Crivelli who was active in Milan in the late 15th and early 16th centuries. Although apparently not by his hand, this cutting shares many of his characteristic features, including faces with heavy eyelids, a taste for architectural decoration and for pearls in the ornament, and a palette with deep, bright, colours including emerald green and a deep blue. The various artists who worked in this style are still being worked out: see Beatrice Alai, Le miniature italiane del Kupferstichkabinett di Berlino (Florence, 2019), cat. 84 (col. ills.); Pier Luigi Mulas in Dizionario biografico dei miniatori italiani: secoli IX–XVI, ed. by Milvia Bollati (Milan, 2004), pp. 187–188; Cristina Quattrini, ‘Miniatori a Milano al passaggio fra Quattrocento e Cinquecento: il “Maestro di Anna Sforza”’, Libri & documenti, XXIV (1998), pp. 1–13; and Mirella Levi d’Ancona, The Wildenstein collection of illuminations: The Lombard school (Florence, 1970), pp. 107–111, col. pls. XXV–XXVII).