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Years 1460-1479

See also : Renaissance  Madonna and Child  Manuscript  Incunabula  Literature  Literature in French  Literature in English  Poems and lyrics  Ancient science  Flemish art  Ancient England  World coins
Years 1430-1459

1460 The First Spin-Off of the Printed Book
​2017 SOLD for € 820K before fees

The commercial failure of the 42-line Bible achieved by Gutenberg in 1455 did not prevent the propagation of the movable type printing by his former collaborators. For three years a small activity is maintained in Mainz only, with Fust and Schoeffer.

The first delocalized spin-off consists of two Bibles, both based on the 42-line Latin Bible and produced between 1458 and 1460 but not dated in the printing. Their oldest rubrication dates define a terminus ante quem at 1460 for the first of the two volumes of the 49-line Bible and at 1461 for the other volume and for the 36-line Bible. Rubrication is the addition of red color by hand to highlight important parts of the text and paragraph changes.

The origin of the 36-line Bible is not documented. It is known as the Bamberg Bible because most of the copies of which an early provenance is known had an owner near that city where Gutenberg had tried in vain to recreate his workshop. The 49-line Bible was printed in Strasbourg by Johannes Mentelin, previously established as a calligrapher.

These three Bibles have other characteristics in common. They were printed in two columns per page with similar papers and inks. The Mentelin Bible was made with an elegant and ephemeral pseudo-gothic typography. Thanks to its higher number of lines per page, this in folio Bible 41 x 30 cm is the most compact.

On October 17 in Paris, Alde sells a complete copy of the first volume including Genesis and Psalms of the Bible of Mentelin, lot 76 estimated € 450K. Here is the link to the website of the auction house. It is covered in a 19th century binding commissioned by a scholar in the spectacular Augsburg style of the 15th century.

The 49-line Bible launched the successful business of Mentelin, more famous with the first printing of a Bible in German in 1466.

​1460-1465 Art and Usage of Tours at the Time of Fouquet
2011 SOLD 467 K€ including premium

PRE SALE DISCUSSION

A remarkable book of hours is for sale by Millon in Paris on June 25. Composed of over 200 pages of parchment in-octavo, it includes twelve major miniatures: they are nice narrative images, about 9 x 6 cm each, arranged on a full page 16 x 11 cm background where some monsters wander within vegetal motifs.

This manuscript book is à l'usage de Tours. Such localization is demonstrated by the list of saints in the calendarwhich includes some local hagiographic celebrities.

Between 1460 and 1465, Tours could become entitled not really as the capital, but at least as one of the major cities of France. The kings were suspicious of Paris, and liked the atmosphere of the Loire Valley.

Painter, illuminator, decorator, Jean Fouquet was born in Tours and had his studio there. As those German image-makers who were developing the printing press at the same time, he certainly helped to promote and propagate the book, although each illuminated livre d'heures remained unique.

Several features combine to try to allocate our book of hours to the workshop of Fouquet : layout of text and miniatures, perfect clarity of imaging, balanced geometric compositions.

Wisely, the catalog does not go further : the book is not from the master's hand. It lacks the psychological dimension of Fouquet who was one of the most innovative artists of his time. Despite this limitation, the appearance of this book on the market is an event.

POST SALE COMMENT

This lot was sold € 467K including premium. The lower estimate announced by La Gazette Drouot was € 250K. So it is a good result.

Video shared before sale on YouTube by Bibliorare :

​1464 The Romance of the Bigamist Knight
2012 SOLD 3.85 M£ including premium

The courtly romance was very popular in the early Middle Ages. The heroic deeds attributed to the knights during the Crusades become legends in which fantastic scenes mingle with realistic episodes. The good knight lived the most fabulous adventures for the honor of his wife.

At the end of the Hundred Years' War, the Duke of Burgundy Philip the Good maintains a prestigious court and is a patron of arts and literature. The prose novel Gillion de Trazegnies, composed at that time by an anonymous writer, is an amazing example of the revival of the courtly romance, with all the features of this literary genre.

The Trazegnies family actually existed in Hainaut, and the legend of the bigamist knight was told a long time before the writing of the novel. The reader is made weeping with this story of a pilgrim to the Holy Land who becomes a prisoner, believes that his wife is dead, becomes unintentionally a bigamist and is released of this accidental sin by his chevaleresque attitude.

This novel was published last year by the medievalist Stéphanie Vincent, who had access to the five copies in illuminated manuscripts of the original edition, all made for the Duke and his entourage.

Louis de Gruuthuse, stadtholder of Holland and Zeeland, was one of the five privileged who received such a copy, illuminated in 1464 with 8 large and 44 small images. Then it belonged to Francis I king of France and to the Dukes of Devonshire. It is estimated £ 3M, for sale by Sotheby's in London on December 5.

The illuminated page where you see the narrator discovering the heart of Gillion between the graves of his two wives is shown in the press release shared by Artdaily.

POST SALE COMMENT

This outstanding manuscript illuminated in Antwerp or Bruges was sold £ 3.85M including premium.


I invite you to play the video shared by Sotheby's introducing both this romance and the Mystère de la Vengeance already discussed in this group :
Manuscript
Literature
Literature in French

​1470 Eternal Virgil
2013 SOLD 1.18 M£ including premium

Before the invention of printing, the poems of antiquity were transmitted through illuminated manuscript copies. Despite the acrimony of the destroyers of paganism, Virgil and Ovid survived. Over the centuries, the admirers of Virgil's perfection supported him by presenting him as a prophet, and he became untouchable thanks to the homage made by Dante.

In 1468 Venice hosts its first printer, Johann of Speyer, who had been a goldsmith in Mainz. Johann starts the task of publishing the masterpieces of Latin literature. The quality of his typography and layout is due to a clever imitation of the manuscripts.

In 1470, Johann died prematurely. His brother and collaborator Wendelin maintained until 1477 this excellent workshop now subject to the competition from Jenson. The tradition of the literary editions of Venice was launched. It will make the fame of Aldus.

On June 12 in London, Christie's sells the works of Virgil published in 1470 by Vindelinus de Spira. This book combining the Bucolica, Georgica and Aeneid along with comments (argumenta) is luxuriously printed on vellum and remarkably complete. It is estimated £ 500K. Here is the link to the catalog.

The Virgil of Wendelin is not the editio princeps but it is equally remarkable because it was built from a manuscript of a high literary fidelity.

POST SALE COMMENT

Very good price, £ 1.18 million including premium, for this incunabula produced by one of the best workshops of the time.
Poems and Lyrics
Incunabula

​1470 A Young Man from the Quattrocento
2012 SOLD 1.4 M$ including premium

PRE SALE DISCUSSION

It is surprising to be suddenly face to face with a young man of the Quattrocento. He looks at you kindly, with some pride, unlike many of his contemporaries who rather exhibited their profile.

On a sheet pretty large in its class, 36 x 23 cm, this portrait is almost life-size. The cap and the jacket with strictcollar are in the fashion of Florence. The technique is clever: the paper was prepared with a sfumato of black chalk, and the sharp line in brown ink shows a careful research of realism.

Comparing with paintings from the same period, the experts consider a probable attribution to Piero del Pollaiolo, circa 1470 (the spelling Pollaiuolo, most common, is not the one used by Wikipedia in Italian, but I learned by the way that this nickname means "son of the chicken seller").

This drawing is estimated $ 300K, for sale by Sotheby's in New York on January 25. Here is the link to the catalog.

POST SALE COMMENT

This rare and beautiful drawing could not stay at its estimate, and the fact that its attribution is not fully demonstrated could not be a handicap for such a piece. It was sold $ 1.4M including premium.

​1470 Gutenberg's Workman
2010 SOLD 937 K£ including premium

Peter Schoeffer has his name inscribed forever in the history of books as being the main contributor of Gutenberg when he printed his Bible in 1455. His own career is also noteworthy.

The first workshops of movable type printing in southern Germany are inseparable from the workshops of copyists, but also, as we shall see, of illuminators. It is admirable, but logical, that some of the earliest incunabula are a synthesis of these wonderful techniques.

On July 7 in London, Christie's is selling a copy printed in Mainz in 1470 by Schoeffer of the Letters (Epistolae) of St. Jerome (Hieronymus).

This is a large-size book on vellum, 48 x 33 cm. The printing needed a second press-up per page to set in red the rubric headings according to the technique invented by the same printer in 1457 for the Psalmorum Codex.

Once printed, the specimens were illuminated by hand, more or less, to be marketed at various prices. The copy which comes up for sale is one of the most decorated and is in remarkable original condition. It is estimated £ 800K.

POST SALE COMMENT
​

Well deserved result for this remarkable illuminated incunable: 937 K £ including premium.

early 1470s Unveiling a Renaissance Virgin and Child
​2017 SOLD for $ 9M including premium

On April 27 in New York, Christie's sells a panel 111 x 125 cm composed as a triptych in Renaissance style, lot 8 estimated $ 3M. At first glance the piece is shocking : it is an oil painting with the exception of the drawings of the Virgin and Child in the central part and of one of the two characters of saints in the left wing.

The great collector Horace Walpole had acquired it for 80 guineas in 1752 in an auction, as a scene of the marriage of Henry VII with Elizabeth of York in 1486. A difference in technique between the characters and the architectural elements suggests that the composition is hybrid but Walpole is very proud to possess this painting considered as typically Tudor. The provenance is known : it had belonged to William Sykes half a century earlier.

It is exhibited in 1890. An acute observer tells in the Gazette des Beaux Arts that he perceives a classic Virgin and Child through the central part which is a church interior without figures.

The work was acquired in 1977 by the art dealer Edward Speelman. Convinced that only the architectural elements and three of the four saints were contemporaries of the Flemish Renaissance, he entrusted the restoration to the specialist David Bull of the Norton Simon Museum.

In a patient work that spans almost ten years, Bull removes with his knife the 18th century paintings, certainly made by or for Sykes who had a reputation as a faker and knew how to transform works when it pleased his clients. Bull's work brings to light a superb drawing of the Virgin and Child in the central part, supersedes Elizabeth of York with an ill-preserved drawing of St John the Baptist and restitutes to the false Tudor the attributes of St. Louis.

The expertise continued. Radiographic inspection and infrared reflectography demonstrate that the quality of the under-drawing is homogeneous throughout the surface. All the composite elements resulting from the painstaking work of Bull come from a Renaissance work. The beauty of drawing, painting and colors indicates that this panel is the autograph work of a master.

The comparison of expressive details, such as the face of the Virgin or the study of feet, with works indisputably attributed to Hugo van der Goes is convincing and a dating in the early 1470s is consistent with the dendrochronology of the panel. Hugo was a perfectionist until he fell into madness. He worked in Ghent where he admired the polyptych painted half a century earlier by the van Eyck brothers for the altar of St. Bavon's cathedral.

Please watch the video shared by Christie's :

#Masterpiece : un tableau rare de Hugo Van der Goes fait partie de la vente Old Master Paintings chez @ChristiesInc à New-York le 27 avril pic.twitter.com/tOVgTLUZgW

— Christie's Paris (@christiesparis) March 13, 2017
Renaissance
Madonna and Child
Flemish Art

​1473 An English Merchant in the Burgundian Court
2014 SOLD 1.08 M£ including premium

William Caxton was a clever merchant who took advantage of the good relations between England and Flanders then under Burgundian rule.

The court of Philippe le Bon was the most luxurious in Europe. Perpetuating the traditions of chivalry, the Duke encouraged literature. One of his protégés, Raoul Lefèvre, successively wrote a story of Jason and a history of Troy.

Charles succeeds Philippe in 1467. His marriage in the following year with Margaret, sister of Edward IV, is an opportunity for Caxton. To please the new ducal couple, he immediately began to translate into English the Troy of Lefèvre. He finished this work in 1471.

Charles the Bold was like his father a great patron of the illuminators. Caxton had traveled throughout Europe and his confidence in printing is extraordinary in this context. The Histoire de Troie translated by Caxton becomes in 1473 or 1474 the first book printed in vernacular English.

A copy of this edition is estimated £ 600K, for sale by Sotheby's in London on July 15, lot 502.

This book was probably printed in Bruges in the entourage of Colard Mansion. Translator and probably editor, Caxton undoubtedly contributed actively to this achievement. After this successful experience, Caxton became the first English printer when he came back to London in 1476.

POST SALE COMMENT

This good copy of the first printed book published in the English language was sold for £ 1.08 million including premium.
Literature in English
Ancient England

​1476 The Old Story of the Animals
​2016 SOLD for $ 940K including premium

The intense and interdisciplinary curiosity of the fifteenth century anticipates the printing. Pope Nicholas V, who died in 1455, is developing a library that will be formalized 20 years later under the name of Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana.

All types of knowledge are now welcomed. In animal biology, the three books of Aristotle make the reference. Famous as a philosopher and as tutor of Alexander, Aristotle was also along with Euclid, Ptolemy and Hippocrates one of the best scientific compilers of antiquity. In three successive books, he provides the name and description of 500 terrestrial and marine animals and describes the mechanisms of reproduction and embryology.

Nicholas V commissioned to Theodorus Gaza a new Latin translation of the De animalibus grouping these three books of Aristotle. It is significant that Theodorus also translated the Botany by Theophrastus.

Twenty years later, Venice specializes in the printing of deluxe books with a superb typographical clarity developed by Jenson and the use of great papers that may compete with the illuminated manuscripts.

The princeps edition of the complete translation of the De animalibus by Theodorus is organized in Venice in 1476. The publisher is Ludovico Prodocator and the printers are Johannes de Colonia and Johannes Manthen de Gheretzem.

Two copies on vellum are known. One of them was acquired in 1784 by the French Royal Library, later Bibliothèque Nationale de France.

The other copy resurfaced a few months ago in Tennessee. A previous provenance was unambiguously re-established through its binding adorned with the coat of arms of a collector in the early nineteenth century. It is a great example of the extreme care applied to books in Venice just two decades after the invention of printing. The book is not illustrated but the initials are illuminated.

This only example on vellum in private hands is estimated $ 300K for sale by Bonhams in New York on June 8, lot 1.

The first Italian edition of the Natural History by Pliny was printed in the same year in Venice by Jenson. A copy was sold for € 195K before fees by Reiss on 1 November 2011.
Ancient Science

​1474-1504 The Gold of the Catolicos Reyes
2012 SOLD 450 K€ before fees

The union of Aragon and Castile in the co-ordinated reign of the Catolicos Reyes, Ferdinand and Isabella (1474-1504),assures a lasting political stability in Spain. The renewed prosperity causes a standardization of the currency in whichthe basic unit is now the dobla castellana, a gold coin also known as the excelente.

The excelentes existed as multiples, marked for the highest values by the required amount of 10s in Roman numerals:X for 10, XX for 20, XXXXX for 50. They are generally not dated, and it is difficult to distinguish between the excelentes of castellanos of the early reign and the later excelentes of ducados.

The Huntington collection, consisting of 38,000 coins from Spain and Spanish colonies, was sold in March 2012 by Sotheby's as a single lot according to the sealed bidding process, for which the price was not disclosed. It was acquired by a consortium of buyers including the auction house Jesús Vico, which organizes a first auction in Madrid on June 26.

The top star of the Huntington collection is not in this first sale. Weighing 140 grams, this presentation coin of 50excelentes displaying the crowned figure of the two sovereigns is the largest known gold coin of the fifteenth century.

Estimated € 450K, a coin of 10 excelentes for sale on June 26 is smaller, weighing 35 grams, but with a similar theme.It was minted in Segovia. The catalog indicates that only two coins of 10 excelentes have survived, of different modelsso that the offered piece, like the specimen of 50 excelentes, is unique in its kind.

It is illustrated on the article shared by ABC.

POST SALE COMMENT
​

This coin of 10 excelentes was not the most prestigious piece of the Huntington collection. Its price, € 450K before fees, corresponding exactly to the estimate, is a very good result for a medieval coin. ​
World Coins
Years 1480-1499
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