Fragments, C12th | Joseph with his Coat of Many Colours, large initial 'F' and 'A' on 5 leaves from a Lectionary in Latin [Austria (Salzburg), 12th century, second half]

Collection of 4 partial leaves, c. 330 × 220–240 mm, and 1 bi-folium, c. 520 x 360 mm, apparently all from a single manuscript, blind-ruled for 27 lines (c. 275 × 175 mm), written in a bold round Romanesque bookhand, titles in Uncial and rustic capitals; decorated with human, bird, and foliate designs, pen-drawn in brown ink, or in red against a background of green and blue; the margins and a minimal amount of text cropped; recovered from use in bindings thus with typical stains, creases, and wear; in a modern clamshell case lettered “From the Carl von Frey Collection”.

BETWEEN ENVY AND EUPHORIA: 5 BEAUTIFUL FRAGMENTS FROM A SALZBURG LECTIONARY

The five beautiful manuscript leaves contain various readings from Genesis, the Book of Kings, Johannes Chrysostomus, and the Homilies of St Gregory and Bede. Two leaves are embellished with curving scroll-work initials finely executed in orange. The shade is also used throughout the leaves for a range of initials. The two large initials are filled with curling pale vines on green and blue ground. Within the letter 'F' a bird perches on one of the vine's branches; its plumage is delicately created in ink.

Of particular interest is the figure accompanying the initial 'I' on on another leaf. A young, androgynous looking man, with long, curling locks, his right arm almost coquettishly placed on his hip. The figure can be identified as a depiction of a young Joseph, wearing a long and colourful garment. The particular garment is the so-called Coat of Many Colours and was given to him by his father Jacob who favoured him among his children. By presenting Joseph with such a luxurious garment his father subverted the excepted hierarchy and elicited the jealousy of his brothers which led to Joseph being sold into slavery into Egypt where he rises to an influential position at the court of the Pharaoh after correctly interpreting the ruler's dreams.

The four leaves and the bifolium offered here embody an attractive style of manuscript decoration from 12th-century Salzburg.

TEXTS

(i) Readings for the third Sunday in Lent, beginning with a very fine historiated initial ‘I’ in the form of a drawing of Joseph as a youth wearing nothing but a cloak (“Dominica III in XL. Ioseph cum sequentur in Genesi sidecem [sic] annorum pascebat gregem …”; Genesis 37:2–10); the text relates how, as a youth aged 17, his father gave him a ‘coat of many colours’; the recto blank except for cropped vestiges of a later 3-character shelfmark or number.

(ii) Readings for the 7th Sunday after Pentecost, beginning with a large fine initial A (“Dominica Septima. Adpropinquauerunt dies David …”, III Kings 2:1–17), preceded by III Kings 1:44–45

(iii) Readings for the 28th Sunday after Pentecost, beginning with a very fine large initial ‘F’ inhabited by a bird (“Omelia beati Iohannis episcopi de eadem lectione. Frequenter Iudei diversis …”; St John Chrysostom’s Homily LXXI on Matthew 22)

(iv) Readings for the feast of the Birth of Mary Magdalene (22 July), beginning with a large orange initial ‘A’ (“In nat. sanctę Marię Magdalenę. Ad Pharisei prandium dominus discumbebat …”; a homily of St Gregory (PL, LXXVI, 1243), preceded by the end of a Homily of Bede.

(v) A part bi-folium with large initials Q and S with readings for Advent; up to 30 lines of text (irregular shape and cut into text at the top).

PROVENANCE

1. The fragments stem from the Romanesque library of a church in Salzburg. They were broken-up and used as binders’ waste probably in the 16th century, and recovered in the 19th century likely after the secularisation of ecclesiastical properties. They were shown in 1893 to Willibald Hauthaler (1843–1922), medieval historian and, from 1901, Abbot of St Peter’s, Salzburg, who wrote the neat identifications in red ink at the lower edge of each leaf.

3. Acquired in Salzburg by the businessman, collector, and landscape painter Carl von Frey (1826–96).

4. Sam Fogg from Christie’s, 23 November 2010, lot 2.

5. UK, Private Collection.