Beschreibung:

ST AGNES AND HER LAMB: a historiated initial on a large leaf from an Antiphonary, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum[Germany or Switzerland (Upper Rhine or Lake Constance), early 14th century]
a single leaf, c. 420 × 285mm, written with 8 lines of text in gothic script and music in square notation on four-line red staves, the recto (framed as the reverse) comprising part of Vespers, with antiphons ‘Discede a me pabulum mortis …’, ‘Dextram meam et collum meum …’, and ‘Posuit signum in faciem meam …’, and (verso) the Matins response for the feast of St Agnes (21 January), ‘D’(iem festum sacratissime virginis celebremus …’; Let us celebrate the feast day of a most sacred virgin), illuminated with a LARGE HISTORIATED INITIAL depicting St Agnes as a crowned saint, holding a palm of martyrdom, accompanied by her symbol, a lamb, next to her,as well as a goat and a bird; the extremities of the border cropped, minor flaking, one edge somewhat stained and the reverse with traces of paper tape from a previous mount, not affecting the text or decoration, generally in fine condition; in a giltwood frame.
PROVENANCE? Eric Korner (1893–1980), London: stated by the next owner to be from his collection; bought by:The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1320.
ILLUMINATIONThis leaf has been confused in some of the previous literature with a series of illuminations which include cuttings in the J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles (MS 8); The Metropolitan Museum, New York; the Wildenstein Collection at the Musée Marmottan, Paris (M6284); the National Gallery of Art, Washington DC (1959.16.1); in the Von Hirsch sale in our rooms, 20 June 1978, lot 5; and elsewhere (see Kidd, 2019, no. 58). The only other leaf known to us that has the same style, layout, and dimensions as the present leaf, is one for the first Sunday in Advent, doubtless of the first leaf of the parent volume, with a large initial depicting The Virgin and Child (Korner sale in our rooms, 19 June 1990, lot 9, with full-page col. ill.; formerly MS 1313 in the Boehlen Collection). It seems that neither leaf was known to Ellen Beer (1983), or Eva Moser (1997), who provide detailed studies of manuscript illumination in the region of Lake Constance.
Agnes’s symbol was the lamb, both because it represents gentleness and because of the similarity between her name and the Latin word for lamb, ‘agnus’. Here the lamb is represented as the Paschal Lamb, with a halo and holding a banner, a symbol of Christ resurrected; Christ was also associated with the lamb mainly because it is a sacrificial animal, and Christians believe that Christ sacrificed himself for Mankind.
REFERENCESE.J. Beer, ‘Die Buchkunst des Graduale von St. Katharinenthal’, in Das Graduale von Sankt Katharinenthal: Kommentar zur Faksimile-Ausgabe des Graduale von Sankt Katharinenthal, ed. by A.A. Schmid (Luzern, 1983).
Buchmalerei im Bodenseeraum: 13. bis 16. Jahrhundert, ed. by E. Moser (Friedrichshafen: Gessler, 1997).
P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, II (London, 2019), no. 58.