Anonymous Lombard Illuminator of around 1310-1320

Edit: thanks to Dr Milvia Bollati for providing the Initial S from the former Longari collection below and confirming the attribution of my initials.

In 2024 I purchased two clippings from a small auction house in Brooklyn.  They had been crudely pasted together by a previous owner, with faux gold leaf covering the seam in parts.  There appeared to be loss of paint, primarily to the flesh tones of the faces and arms, but the over all quality seemed quite nice despite that and I decided to go for them.

After purchasing, I discovered that these two initial I's were from a known set of clippings held at numerous institutions and private collections.  A 2015 auction at Koller in Zurich, with notes to Lot 158 written by Gaudenz Freuler provided the greatest amount of help.  16 initials were known at the time of the Koller sale.  The two I's my brooklyn purchase increases the total to 18.

Digital Photos Available (see below):

Initial I - Jesus fasting in the desert (MB Collection)

Initial I - Prophet Elijah raising widow's son from the dead (MB Collection)

Initial L - God speaking to Moses (Art Institute of Chicago 1924.149)

Initial I - Risen Jesus (Fitzwilliam Museum MS McClean 201.9n)

Initial H - Saint Martin (private collection)

Initial C - Madona Enthroned, listening to ska (private collection)

Initial I - Presentation in the Temple (BL Add. 299902)

Initial C - Female Saint in prayer, surrounded by the playing of instruments (BL Add. 299902)

Initial I - Unknown standing Saint (John?) (BL Add. 299902)

Initial L - Saint Nicholas of Myra giving gifts to children (BL Add. 299902)

Initial U - Coronation of the Virgin (BL Add. 299902)

Initial S - Conversion of Paul (Former Longari Collection)

No Photos Available:

Unknown - 6 additional initials are part of the BL Add. 299902 manuscript. However with the cyber attack crippling the British Library, I have not been able to track these down, nor is the British Library responding to my requests for photos of these missing clippings, or even descriptions of the initials.

  

Provenance

The verso of my clippings had the below note attached to it, purporting to have been collected by an Arthur Hutton while he was in Spain:

This led me to the 1929 sale catalogue of George E. Leighton at Anderson Galleries, specifically lot 81:

George E. Leighton had actually died in 1901.  These miniatures went on sale when Leighton's son George B. Leighton passed away in 1929.  Interestingly, the collection seems to have been briefly loaned to Harvard Library as noted in the 1916 annual report:

Unfortunately, not much is known about the clippings prior to the 19th century.  Friedrich Zeileis did make the an interesting observation in their 2014 article that there is an inscription on the Initial C.  The initials MFFA, MPDV appear beside Saint Martin as well as the date of 1566, 4th of September in Italian.  (Zeileis has the initials being MXIA/MPDV, but I disagree here).  Given the Italian spelling of September, this puts the manuscript in Italy at least through 1566.

Lastly, the content of my leaves I think could suggest a Carmelite usage.  The presence of Elijah, the founder of the Carmelite Order obviously fits, but also the initial of Jesus fasting in the desert in the other initial I.  In it, Jesus is praying to God while a raven sits on a tree looking on.  This mirrors the old testament story of Elijah fed by a ravens while in the desert.  

That said, the raven in the initial I could be a later addition, along with the insects on the ground.

These clippings can be found on archive.org here

Friedrich G. Zeileis, Più ridon le carte (3rd ed.), Rauris 2014, pp. 310-313.

Gaudenz Freuler, Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, Milan 2013, pp. 432-437.