ENLUMINATION. BIBLE. Initial A historiated. Daniel... Lot 4

[ENLUMINATION]. [BIBLE]. Initial A historiated. Daniel in the lions' den. Leaf from a Bible. Beginning of the Book of Daniel. Tempera, gouache and gold leaf on parchment. France, probably Paris or Northern France, first quarter of the 13th century. Dimensions : 145 x 220 mm Good general condition, a few chips without gravity. This leaf is extracted from the "Huth-Hornby-Cockerell-Haddaway Bible" which originally contained 71 historiated initials and 81 ornate initials. In this manuscript, the present leaf occupied fol. 275 of this very elegant "portable" bible designed for preaching monks in the 13th century but here in a more luxurious format. This Bible was copied before the chaptering of the Bible was adopted in the 1220s. Laura Light speaks of the "Proto-Paris Bible" (see L . Light, "French Bibles c. 1200-30: A New Look at the Origin of the Paris Bible," in The Early Medieval Bible, ed. R. Gameson (1994), pp. 155-76). From a stylistic point of view, this historiated initial is reminiscent of the illuminations of moralized Bibles painted in Paris in the thirteenth century. It was at one time compared to the illuminations contained in the Hours for the use of Soissons (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. M. 92), attributed to the "Morgan 92 Group" (see Branner, Manuscript Painting in Paris During the Reign of Saint Louis: A Study of Styles, 1977, pp. 58-59). Other suggested attributions link the historiated initials to the artists of the Vienna Moralized Bible (Vienna, ÖNB, Cod. 1179) or to the "Blanche" and "Almagest" or "Alexander" workshops, active in Paris or the north (Amiens, Rouen?) in the years 1210-1220. On the "Huth-Hornby-Cockerell-Haddaway Bible," see the excellent study by Eric J. Johnson, "Breaking and Remaking Scripture: The Life, Death, and Afterlife of the Hornby-Cockerell Bible," in Manuscript Studies: A Journal of the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies, 4.2 (2019), pp. 270-333 [this leaf cited in Appendix I, p. 56: Current location unknown]; see also P. Kidd, The McCarthy Collection. Vol. III French Miniatures (2021), no. 15, which describes seven leaves and gives details of the "parent volume and sister leaves" [this leaf is cited on p. 58 and linked to OSU (Ohio State University)]. The manuscript is also discussed in Eric J. Johnson and Scott Gwara, "The Butcher's Bill: Using the Schoenberg Database to Reverse-Engineer Medieval and Renaissance Manuscript Books from Constituent Fragments," in Manuscript Studies 1, no. 2 (2016): 235-62 at 240-46. Provenance : 1. Henry Huth (1815-1878) and later Alfred Huth (1850-1910), Sotheby's sale, 15 November 1911, lot 645 (purchased by Quaritch). Henry Huth had acquired it in 1856 from Joseph Lilly (1804-1870), a London bookseller: "The Haddaway Bible was therefore bought by Henry Huth in 1856 for 18 18s from Joseph Lilly. Lilly may have sold it from stock for 18 Guineas, or perhaps he bought it at auction on behalf of Huth for 18, to which he added 5% commission" (see P. Kidd: https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/search?q=haddaway). 2. C.H. St. John Hornby (1867-1946). 3. Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962). See C. de Hamel, "Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts from the Library of Sir Sydney Cockerell (1867-1962)," in British Library Journal, 13, 1987, pp. 186-210, no. 113. 4. Arthur Haddaway (1901-1981), lawyer and collector from Fort Worth, Texas. Discussed in Gothic and Renaissance Manuscripts from Texas Collections, 1971, University of Texas (Austin.). Sale of his collection: Christie's New York, September 25, 1981, lot 2. From Huth to Haddaway, the manuscript had remained intact. In 1981, the manuscript was purchased by Bruce Ferrini, who dismembered it. 5. Sheet sold by Quaritch, Catalogue 1270: Bookhands of the Middle Ages, VI (2000), no.16. Offered by Pirages in 2002 and 2003. Then London, Sotheby's, June 22, 2004, lot 14. Related leaves: Some 197 leaves of the 1981 dismembered manuscript (originally comprising 440 ff.) are in the Ohio State University (Rare Books & Manuscripts Library, Spec. Rar. MS.MR. Frag. 74). The leaves immediately preceding (fol. 274) and immediately following (fol. 276) our leaf (fol. 275) are in the Ohio State University. See also an illustrated folio in S. N. Fliegel, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, 1999, p. 12, no.1.