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| Titre : | Old Testament Miniatures : A Medieval Picture Book with 283 Paintings From the Creation to the Story of David |
| Auteurs : | Sidney C. Cockerell, Éditeur scientifique |
| Type de document : | texte imprimé |
| Editeur : | New York [USA] : George Braziller, after 1968 |
| Format : | 209 p. / Planches couleurs hors-textes |
| Note générale : | Face-similé |
| Langues: | Anglais |
| Index. décimale : | UF/A (Peinture et iconographie biblique et chrétienne) |
| Résumé : |
Among the great treasures in the Pierpont Morgan Library in New York is an illuminated book more than seven hundred years old, depicting nearly three hundred scenes from the Old Testament, from the Creation to the story of David. The miniatures, richly colored in shades of red, green, blue, pink, brown, and gold, are reproduced here in color in their entirety for the first time. They are unrivaled for their day in inventiveness, dramatic energy, and detail.
No less extraordinary is the history of the book, and its long journey from West to East and back to the West. It is conjectured that around the year 1300 the book went from Paris, where it had been made, to the court of Naples, where Latin descriptions of the scenes were added. At what time and by what stages it then went northward until it reached Poland we do not know, but it was in Cracow at the beginning of the seventeenth century, in the possession of Bernard Maciejowski, “Cardinal Priest of the Holy Roman Church, Bishop of Cracow, Duke of Siewierz, and Senator of the Kingdom of Poland.” In 1608 this volume of Old Testament miniatures was in Persia, having been brought to Isfahan as Maciejowski’s gift for the monarch, Shah Abbas the Great, by a mission dispatched by Pope Clement VIII. The purpose of the mission was to foster the Shah’s toleration toward Christians and to concert military and naval action against the common enemy, the Turk, of whom half of Europe was in mortal dread. Over two centuries later, the book became the property of the noted antiquarian, Sir Thomas Phillipps, among whose sixty thousand books and manuscripts it was regarded as one of the greatest. In 1916 it was purchased by John Pierpont Morgan and is now in the famous library that bears his father’s name. Three leaves have been identified as among those missing from the bound book, and these are reproduced here with the permission of their owners. The artists, who probably worked in Paris around 1250, live through their work—the beautifully drawn, vigorous figures, the skillful expression of human emotion, the keen observation of costume, armor, and background detail. The vivid battle scenes are the finest to survive from the thirteenth century. The history of the book is presented in full by Sir Sydney C. Cockerell, late director of the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, who also contributed the legends describing each of the scenes. John Plummer, Research Fellow for Art at the Pierpont Morgan Library, has written a preface and note to the plates, and has provided a selective bibliography. |
| Note de contenu : |
- Preface - Selected bibliography - The book and its history - Note to the plates - The plates with commentary |
Exemplaires (1)
| Code-barres | Cote | Support | Localisation | Section | Disponibilité |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| UF/A 012 | UF/A 012 | Livre | Compactus | Livres empruntables | Prêt possible Disponible |
