Elegant Gothic initial from a dispersed Rhineland Breviary.
 
60 mm × 60 mm, cutting preserving ONE HISTORIATED INITIAL ‘P’, painted in blue with white scalloping enclosing the Nativity, the Virgin reclines on a draped bed holding the Christ Child at her breast, with Joseph seated beside her holding a book, and the ox and ass appearing above the manger, figures set against a deep blue ground, framed by a burnished gold background with delicate white scroll ornament. Text effaced on reverse, with traces of former mounting and traces of script and perhaps musical notation, minor surface wear and pigment losses, otherwise preserving bright colors and fine detail.  
 
Historiated with the Nativity showing the Virgin seated and nursing the Christ Child, with the empty manger beside them, probably marking the beginning of the Introit Puer natus est for Christmas Day. A sister cutting from the same parent manuscript, also formerly in the McCarthy Collection, is offered in this sale (lot 15). Both cuttings were exhibited together in Hong Kong (Knothe 2015).
 
The precise origin of the parent manuscript remains uncertain, although its style suggests production in the Rhineland or a neighboring region. By the twentieth century, the manuscript had been dismembered and circulated on the art market as a group of at least 141 cuttings. This group was later reduced to a smaller collection of eight initials, which were acquired by Sam Fogg in 1998 and subsequently dispersed.
 
Provenance
(1) Apparently part of a series of 141 or more cuttings, and later part of a series of eight, to judge by the pencil numbers inscribed in pencil in a twentieth(?)-century Continental hand on the reverse: “2” and “131.”
 
(2) Bruce Ferrini, Akron (1949–2010).
 
(3) Sam Fogg, purchased April 1998 as part of a group of eight cuttings mounted together with similar pencil inscriptions on the back, with numbers from 1–8, and 131–141 (lacking 132, 138, and 140).
 
(4) Robert McCarthy, London, MS BM 1207b, acquired with a second sister cutting (BM 1207a).
 
Sister leaves
Initial ‘E’ with Adoration of the Magi, probably opening the first responsory at Matins for the Feast of the Epiphany (Ecce advenit dominator Dominus) (McCarthy Collection, BM MS 2207a).
 
LITERATURE
Published: Florian Knothe, Illustrious Illuminations: Christian Manuscripts from the High Gothic to the High Renaissance (1250–1540), Hong Kong, 2015, no. 7a; Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, Vol. 2: Spanish, English, Flemish & Central European Miniatures, London, 2019, no. 49a.
 
We are grateful to Peter Kidd for permission to quote from his catalogue for this entry, and we thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.
 
The Robert McCarthy Collection