The Flight into Egypt, miniature on a vellum leaf from a Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin. [France (Paris), c.1410]
EGERTON MASTER (1410)
£7500.00
Single leaf on vellum with miniature for Vespers in the Hours of the Virgin, 18 lines. Miniature with Joseph leading the donkey upon which the Virgin Mary sits with the infant Christ, wrapped in swaddling bands, dry, desert-like background of rocks and hills with trees and city against a sky coloured in vibrant blue. Large, five-line initial 'D' in blue with fine infill of floral pattern on red grounds with white tracery, supporting ornate bar borders in gold, red and blue, with whirls of floral ornament at corners and fine floral decoration with hair-line stems. Verso with illuminated two-line initial and partial border (slightly cockled, faint smudge to sky).
Size of leaf: 175 x 124mm. Size of miniature: 85 x 58mm.
A superb leaf with a miniature of The Flight into Egypt painted by the Egerton Master. Notably fine are the small faces of the Virgin and infant Jesus. The short and dense brushstrokes used for the landscape and the tiny feathery grey trees in the hilly background are especially characteristic for his work.
The artist was named after a Book of Hours in the British Library with the shelfmark Egerton 1070; there are several parallels between the present depiction of the flight and that in Egerton MS 1070, including the slightly bowed figure and bearded complexion of Joseph. The Egerton Master may have been Netherlandish by birth, but his known activity starts in Paris where he collaborated with many of the most important manuscript illuminators of the early fifteenth century, notably the Mazarine Master, as well as the Master of the Brussels Initials, an artist who came from Bologna to work in the French capital. Christine de Pizan, one of the most famous medieval female authors, asked the Egerton Master to illuminate three presentation copies of a work she composed in 1409-1410 on seven allegorized psalms.
Stock Code: 246297
