"Art History News" Blog and Recent Provenance

One of the blogs I follow is Art History News: it has nothing to do with medieval manuscripts, but it occasionally has something interesting to me -- about the art market, for example.

It has been following the Affair of the Fake Cranach since the story broke, and today has a post about how the series of fakes could probably have been unmasked sooner if more attention had been paid to their (lack of) provenance:
http://www.arthistorynews.com/articles/4201_Provenance

Forgery is very rarely an issue with medieval manuscripts, but what has become very prevalent in recent years is the "restoration" of illuminations by dealers. They have apparently found a very gifted artist to restore and visually improve damaged miniatures, and often the only way of knowing what has happened is to compare the present appearance, with a photograph taken a few years or a few decades ago: yet another reason why the tracing of recent provenance is important.

Stolen Leaves and Cuttings [15]

The final items in this series are Ethiopian, and thus less perhaps likely to be encountered by readers of this blog.

Folding manuscript with saints
Ethiopia, 15th – 16th century

28 loose leaves from a Martyrologium
Ethiopia 16th century
490 x 390 mm


I have been asked to spread the word about a number of leaves and cuttings that were stolen from a private collection in London a few years ago. Rather than post them all at once, I will aim to do one per day for the next several days, and then do a cumulative list that you can print out and keep handy for future reference. Please circulate the details to colleagues. If you see, or have seen, any of them please contact info@samfogg.com

Stolen Leaves and Cuttings [14]

The Last Judgement
Historiated initial D from Psalm 101 in a Psalter
Germany, 13th century, first half
c. 145 × 99 mm


I have been asked to spread the word about a number of leaves and cuttings that were stolen from a private collection in London a few years ago. Rather than post them all at once, I will aim to do one per day for the next several days, and then do a cumulative list that you can print out and keep handy for future reference. Please circulate the details to colleagues. If you see, or have seen, any of them please contact info@samfogg.com

Stolen Leaves and Cuttings [13]

[detail]

Miniature illustrating "De theatro", chapter XXXVI of an unidentified text
Spain, 13th century
c. 165 × 97 mm

The text above the miniature appears to be Rhabanus Maurus's commentary on the colours of the four horses of the Apocalypse; the text below the miniature appears to be "De theatro", Bk.XVIII.42 of Isidore, Etymologies.

I have been asked to spread the word about a number of leaves and cuttings that were stolen from a private collection in London a few years ago. Rather than post them all at once, I will aim to do one per day for the next several days, and then do a cumulative list that you can print out and keep handy for future reference. Please circulate the details to colleagues. If you see, or have seen, any of them please contact info@samfogg.com

Stolen Leaves and Cuttings [12]

[detail]

[detail]

Hosea and his wife Gomer
Historiated initial ‘U’, and two other initials on a leaf from a Bible
France, Paris, c.1240–50
c. 190 × 140 mm

I have been asked to spread the word about a number of leaves and cuttings that were stolen from a private collection in London a few years ago. Rather than post them all at once, I will aim to do one per day for the next several days, and then do a cumulative list that you can print out and keep handy for future reference. Please circulate the details to colleagues. If you see, or have seen, any of them please contact info@samfogg.com

Bible Leaves in Philadelphia, London, and Paris

I have recently become more interested in large Bibles. (Small ones may of course be very interesting, too, but they can be very fiddly to handle, often involve a lot of page-turning and eye-strain for very little reward, and if they are not in an institutional collection they are often unfoliated (or incorrectly foliated), which makes them difficult to describe and collate).