Illuminated Manuscript—A set of twenty illuminated roundels, on vellum showing the Zodiac Signs and Labours of the Month from a Flemish Book of Hours or Breviary, (likely Ghent or Bruges), c.1500

Twenty charming and endearing calendar miniatures showing the Labours of the Month and Zodiac signs

PROVENANCE:

1. From a Ghent or Bruges Book of Hours or Breviary.

2. Likely from a French private collection.

3. Swiss dealer Peter Birmann assembled a monumental album of 475 miniatures in the early 1790s and completed it by 1796. It was assembled without recognisable organisation — at least from an outside perspective. Even miniatures from the same manuscript were not placed in their intended original order. Based on the lack of organisation, it is assumed that Birmann intended to sell them off individually or in groups as the album included an itemised list of prices for the individual pieces.

4. Sold to Daniel Burckhardt-Wildt (1752–1819), Basel silk-ribbon merchant, antiquarian, and collector in 1796 for 444 livres tournois.

5. By descent through his heirs in Basel until sold in these rooms, 25 April 1983, lot 113.

COMMENTARY:

The Swiss native, Peter Birmann, was one of the first bookdealers to specialise in illuminated manuscripts following a career as landscape painter. After extensive travels throughout Europe, Birman arrived in Paris which was plagued by the toils of the French Revolution. One of the victims of the revolution were private libraries of the aristocracy which had been assembled over centuries. With the dissolution and dispersal of these collections, a multitude of illuminated manuscripts came onto the market. While unthinkable today, these manuscripts were sold purely by weight, disregarding their history or ornamentation. This opened the floodgate for clever and enterprising bookdealers who realised the significance of the decorated pages and recognised a profitable opportunity.

Starting in the 1790s until 1796, Biermann created a monumental album of 475 miniatures of cuttings from illuminated manuscripts. It is unclear if he himself excised the miniatures or if he bought them already separated. In 1976 Biermann sold the album to the Basel silk-merchant, Daniel Burckhardt-Wildt (1752–1819), where it remained for nearly two hundred years. 1983, the album was sold in our rooms in London.

There did not appear to be a particular system of organisation in place, at least to the outside viewer. Even miniatures originating from the same manuscript were not placed in their originally intended order. The album also contained an itemised list of prices for each of the individual miniatures which emphasises the fact that it was not Birmann’s intention to keep the album intact as a work in and of itself. The sale of the album received widespread attentions from private collectors as well as scholars.

ILLUMINATION:

The ten roundels offer charming insights into the annual cycle of pastoral life during the early 16^th century, depicting farmers sowing, reaping, threshing grain, tending to livestock and getting ready to slaughter a pig. We also get glimpses into more gentil life, a man warming himself in front of an ebullient fire and two lovers gallivanting through a spring landscape. On the revers, we find the Zodiac Signs. These are executed in an advanced naturalistic fashion, making it possible to distinguish between the scorpion for Scorpio and a cray fish for the Cancer sign. These small vignettes of medieval life are imbued with a levity and a tongue in cheek humour that endears them to the onlooker from the first glance onwards.

The human figures exhibit a range of characteristics that are found in the works of the Dresden Master whose charming and whimsical style is particularly adept at capturing the humoresque depiction of peasant life. Particularly the male figures are short and stocky with strong arms and legs clothed in colourful garbs often with bright orange details and hats pulled low over their eyes.

There are twenty miniatures on either side of ten roundels. The subjects are:

1. A nobleman warming himself by the fire, sitting in a high-backed chair with his feet on a mat and with a silver jug on the sideboard behind him. Verso: Aquarius, the water-bearer emptying two flagons into a river. January. 36mm×37mm.

2. A peasant chopping small trees. He wrapped up against the cold which is evident in the earth that lightly touched by frost. Verso: Pisces, two fish depicted hovering in the air. February. 36mm×37mm.

3. A courting couple dressed up in their Sunday best walking through a verdant landscape, with arms interlinked. The man has picked up a stick. Verso: Taurus, an ox resting in a field; behind it birds soaring around a windmill. April. 35mm×37mm.

4. A peasant with a scythe mowing grass in a field. Behind is a fence with a gate and a path into the woods. Verso: Cancer, a crayfish-like creature in a landscape. June. 36mm×36mm.

5. A peasant in a sunhat cutting wheat with a sickle. The wheat stalks are tall and mingled with little flowers. Verso: Leo, a lion majestically reposing in a field. July. 36mm×37mm.

6. Two peasants in a barn threshing wheat with flails. Their leggings are worn threadbare and their feet are visible. Verso: Virgo, a virgin standing by a path near a wood. August. 37mm×37mm.

7. A peasant stomping grapes in a great vat. Other barrels are visible behind in a storeroom. Verso: Libra, a girl in a counting-house holding up a pair of scales. September. 37mm×37mm.

8. A peasant sowing in a ploughed field. Behind is a fence and gate and paths running between trees. Verso: Scorpio, a scorpion in a landscape. October. 35mm×36mm.

9. A peasant knocking down acorns for his pigs which root around under the trees. Verso: Sagittarius, a centaur with a bow and arrow. November. 36mm×35mm.

10. A peasant readying himself to kill a pig for Christmas. The man wears an apron and is swinging his axe; the pig is tied to a stool and backs away anxiously. Behind is the manor house. Verso: Capricorn, a ram standing in a field. Behind a fence, people can be seen on a path. December. 35mm×35mm.

An utterly charming set of miniatures that hint at later developments of Flemish book art and painting in the course of the 16^th century.

LITERATURE

de Hamel, Christopher. Cutting Up Manuscripts for Pleasure and Profit. Ann Arbor: Book Arts Press, 2002.

Die flämische Buchmalerei am Ende des Burgunderreichs: Der Meister des Dresdener Gebetbuchs und die Miniaturisten seiner Zeit. Turnhout: Brepols, 1997.

Hindman, Sandra, Michael Camille, Nina Rowe, and Rowan Watson, eds. Manuscript Illumination in the Modern Age: Recovery and Reconstruction. Evanston, IL: Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art, Northwestern University, 2001.

Kren, Thomas, and Scot McKendrick, eds. Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe. Los Angeles: J. Paul Getty Museum, 2003.

Morgan, Nigel. “The Burckhardt-Wildt Apocalypse.” In Art at Auction: The Year at Sotheby’s 1982–83, 162–69. London, 1983.

Smeyers, Maurice. Flemish Miniatures from the 8th to the Mid-16th Century. Turnhout: Brepols, 1999.

Lucas, Emerald. “Cuttings from the Burckhardt-Wildt Album, Together Again.” The Morgan Library & Museum Blog. https://www.themorgan.org/blog/cuttings-burckhardt-wildt-album-together-again.

“Donne Hours Codicological Puzzle.” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art. https://jhna.org/articles/donne-hours-codicological-puzzle/.