Another Hachette-Lehman-Yale Cutting

I have been compiling a list of the illuminations of Mortimer Brandt recently (they will be the subject of a future blogpost), including the one above, which gave me a reason to investigate its provenance.

[Source]

It has long been recognised as being extremely similar to a cutting at the Yale University Art Gallery (above) -- they presumably come from the same parent manuscript. One of the things that is never conveyed by images like these is their large size: they are each 20-23 cm (8-9 inches) tall.

Each shows a half-length prophet(?), looking upwards, next to an initial "I"; the palette and design of the initial "I"s are extremely like one another, so the main differences are the colours of the figures' beards and clothes.

The style of the cuttings is related to that of the Master of the Murano Gradual (of which some examples are in this blogpost), but is much more sculptural in appearance:

A number of other initials probably by the same (or a closely-related) illuminator have been published by Ágnes Tóvizi, "Some newly discovered Quattrocento illuminations in Székesfehérvár", Arte cristiana, 96 (2008), pp. 307-12, including this one:

The Yale Art Gallery website records no provenance for its cutting, except that it was donated by Robert Lehman.

From the fact that it has an accession number consecutive with the cuttings discussed in the previous post (each accession number begins "1954.7.[...]"), we can assume that he gave them as part of the same donation, in 1954.

In tracing the provenance of the Mortimer Brandt cutting, I discovered that it was one of a pair that were sold anonymously at Sotheby's, 11 December 1961; the Brandt one was lot 126:

In this description it is recorded that it was previously sold in Paris, 15 December 1934, lot 86; I have not yet been able to consult this catalogue:

Catalogue des dessins, aquarelles, gouaches anciens et modernes, ... , enluminures des 14e et 15e siècles, appartenant à Madame X... ... la vente aura lieu à Paris, Hôtel Drouot, ... 15 décembre 1934

Neither the Brandt cutting nor the preceding lot in the 1961 Sotheby's catalogue are reproduced, but the description of lot 125 makes it sound identical, except for the colours of the prophet's clothes:

We learn from this description that this cutting had been in the same 1934 auction in Paris.

The 1961 Sotheby's cataloguer -- or, perhaps more likely, the person who consigned the two initials for sale -- knew that another cutting from the same manuscript had been sold eight years earlier, at the André Hachette sale in 1953, as lot 58 (although there would be no way to know this from the bland description, and there is no reproduction):

This Hachette cutting must surely be the one now at Yale (the reported dimensions correspond precisely): it was doubtless acquired by Lehman together with the other ex-Hachette cuttings discussed in the previous post.

In summary, we now have:

• a description of a previously-overlooked sister cutting of the well-known Brandt and Yale cuttings
• traced the provenance of the Yale cutting to the important Hachette collection
• traced the provenance of all three cuttings to Paris

The third point makes it likely that all three were together in Paris by the 1930s. I suspect that when I am able to consult a copy of the 1934 catalogue, it will provide more leads to follow: this is therefore one more item for my growing to-do list, for when libraries re-open. 

Edit, 28 Nov. 2020

Going through old papers I found a handlist of an exhibition at Sam Fogg's gallery, "Medieval Manuscripts: Fremch and Flemish Books of Hours & Miniatures from the Breslauer Collection and Other Sources", 15 March -- 16 April 2004, in which no. 1 was this:

In this initial the figure appears to be wearing a headband, not a hat, and the colours of his clothes (green-lined blue cloak over a red tunic) do not match the descriptions of any of the other three initials discussed above, so this is presumably a previously-unknown fourth cutting from the same manuscript.

(The poor image of the iamge is due to the fact that it is an enlarged photo of an inkjet printout, in which the image was about 35×20mm).

EDIT 7 Jan 2021

I now realise that the Fogg cutting above is in the Breslauer exh. cat. by Voelkle & Wieck, 1992, no. 76. With a better image, it is now apparent that, while the composition is very similar, the style is different (though still attributed to Venice or the Veneto) and the Breslauer one is attributed to Cristoforo Cortese:

Edit 15 October 2021

I now find that the above initial was reproduced in colour as Sotheby's, 5 July 2005, lot 37, so the differences are even more obvious: