Franciscan Antiphonary from Regensburg
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Made end of 13th century
Material / Technique
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 49,2 x 37 cm
Inventory numberNMB 2328B
AcqusitionGift of Ernest Erickson Foundation 1989
Other titlesTitle (sv): Blad ur antifonarium. Intitialen A Title (en): Franciscan Antiphonary from Regensburg Previous: Antiphonal
DescriptionCatalogue raisonné: Research project 2022-2023, Illuminated Manuscripts, Christian Etheridge, Art Historian Franciscan Antiphonary from Regensburg Shelfmark: NMB 2328 A-D (formerly Ernest Erickson Foundation Med. 1-4) Date: c.1296-1310 Place of Origin: Regensburg Material: Gouache and gold on parchment Dimensions: 492 x 370 mm Number of Leaves: 4 Binding: None Foliation: 1, 2, 63, 215 Artist: Unknown Type: Antiphonary Language: Latin Script: Gothic Textura Number of Lines: 8 Textual Context: NMB 2328A 1st Sunday in Advent, NMB 2328B Vespers before the 1st Sunday in Advent, NMB 2328C 6th January Epiphany, NMB 2328D 25th January. Text: NMB 2328A (E)cce nomen Domini venit de longinquo (Behold the name of the Lord cometh from afar), NMB 2328B (A)spiciens a longe, ecce video Dei potentiam venientem (I look from afar: and lo, I see the power of God coming) NMB 2328C (H)odie, in Jordane baptizato Domino (Today, when the Lord had been baptized in the Jordan), NMB 2328D (Q)ui operatus est Petro (He Who worked in Peter). Decoration: NMB 2328A is in an initial A in red and blue fleuronné. NMB 2328B is an initial A that represents either a king or a prophet. This could be either King David or possibly the prophet Isaiah. The figure stands in the initial A that is brown, with a palmate and interlace pattern. Behind the figure is a gold leaf background and ivy leaves are growing out of the background and around the initial A. The figure wears either a hat or a crown of silver and brown. He is bearded with curled blond hair and in his left hand holds a banderole that is blank. The figure wears a red robe tied over his left shoulder and with a green tunic and black shoes. NMB 2328C is an initial H with the text referring to the Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan. The initial H is blue with diamond patterns and stands in front of a gold leaf background. The central bar of the initial H divides the scene into two halves. The upper half shows a bust image of God, with a blue sky and green hill with curling ivy leaves. Behind God’s head is a halo, divided into quarters by a brown cross with white circles. God has grey curling hair and a beard, wears a blue robe and brown tunic and looks directly out at the viewer. From the mouth of God flies the Holy Spirit, represented as a dove, that crosses over the central bar of the initial H and into the lower half of the scene above the head of Christ. The lower half of the scene follows the text as it shows Christ being baptized in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. Christ stands naked in the middle of the image with a blue halo. He stands in the River Jordan that is represented by yellow waves and some charming little fish. To the left stands John the Baptist with a blue halo, his right hand outstretched in the sign of blessing. He wears a heavy brown cape, over a blue tunic. On the right stands a helper with a red halo and green tunic who holds Christ’s white robe for him. NMB 2328D is an initial Q with the text being part of a longer passage that reads ‘He Who worked in Peter for the apostleship, worked also in me among the Gentiles’ and refers to St Paul in the Biblical scene of the Conversion of Saul. This scene shows Saul on the Road to Damascus where he receives a vision of Jesus and loses his sight. Here Saul is riding on a horse, where he looks up to the vision and promptly falls. Saul wears a green cloak with brown tunic. The initial Q is blue and pink on a background of gold leaf, while a dragon forms the tail of the letter. This dragon looks up with mouth agape at the scene of St Paul. Ownership: The original antiphonary was still intact in 1945, when a description of this manuscript lists the order of the folios (Kidd 2019). In this list NMB 2328B is fol. 1, NMB 2328A is fol. 2, NMB 2328C is fol. 63 and NMB 2328D is maybe fol. 215. The antiphonary was made for a religious house in Regensburg. It has been stated that this was the Dominican nunnery of the Heilig Kreuz (Suckale 1987, 2010). More recent analysis of the text of the surviving fragments has pointed to Franciscan use rather than Dominican (Abel and Hökby 1987, Kidd 2019 and 2022, Smith 2021). This could be the Franciscan friars of St. Salvator in Regensburg or the Poor Clare’s of St. Maria Magdalena in Regensburg. Underneath one of the initials in the Pierpoint Library fragment, there is an inscription that reads ‘Gerwirch’, which would indicate the name of a female donor. Most of the manuscript, including the Nationalmuseum fragments stem from an artist’s workshop active in Regensburg from the late 13th to the mid-14th century. This workshop produced other manuscripts including a Breviary of the Teutonic Order held in Frankfurt as well as producing panel paintings, murals and stained glass (Suckale 2010). There is an inscription in French on NMB 2328A fol. 1r, probably from the 19th century, that reads antiphonaire venant d’allemagne 18 miniatures (antiphonary from Germany 18 miniatures), this could point to being owned by a French or Swiss owner at some point. The earliest known owner of the book was Percy Mordaunt Barnard (1868-1941), an English author and bookseller. A catalogue written by him entered the Bodleian Library in 1909. In this catalogue the manuscript is listed as having 301 leaves, with 14 of paper added to the end. The next owner known is Hellmuth Wallach (1901-1989), a German art dealer. He fled Munich in 1937 and worked for his father-in-law Emil Hirsch (1866-1954) at Emil Hirsch Rare Books and Prints, New York. In 1945 the Brummer Gallery of New York bought the book from the Parke-Benet auction in New York on 5th March 1945. Between then and 1953 when Raphael Stora exhibited some leaves at the LA County Museum, the book was broken up. The leaves that make up NMB 2328 were purchased in 1954 by Ernest Erickson (1893-1983), an important Finnish art and antique collector who was naturalized in the United States, from R. Stora and Company gallery in New York. Other leaves from the manuscript were sold by Stora to the Pierpoint Morgan Library (now Morgan Library & Museum), Walters Art Museum and Seattle Art Museum. Acquired: Donated by Ernest Erickson to the Nationalmuseum in 1964. Exhibitions: Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, held at the Nationalmuseum, Stockholm, December 1987 to March 1988. Leaves from the same Manuscript in other Collections: Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, Ms W.754A-B. Cambridge MA, Harvard University, Houghton Library, Ms Typ 961. New York, Morgan Library & Museum, Ms M.870.1-3. Seattle, Seattle Art Museum, Ms 55.30. Related Manuscripts in Other Collections: Frankfurt am Main, Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek, MS lat. oct. 3. Oxford, Keble College, 49. Literature: Abel, Ulf, and Nils Göran Hökby (eds.), Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1987), no. 21, pp. 33. Harrsen, Meta, Central European Manuscripts in the Pierpont Morgan Library (New York: The Pierpont Morgan Library, 1958), no. 33. Kidd, Peter, ‘The Brummer Gallery Archive I: An Antiphonary from Regensburg’ in Medieval Manuscripts Provenance Blog, (Saturday, 15 September 2018), https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2018/09/the-brummer-gallery-archive-i.html Kidd, Peter, The McCarthy Collection. Volume II: Spanish, English, Flemish and Central European Miniatures (London: Ad Illissum, 2019). Kidd, Peter, ‘More About the Regensburg "GERWIRCH" Antiphonary’ in Medieval Manuscripts Provenance Blog, (Saturday, 4 June 2022), https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2022/06/more-about-regensburg-gerwirch.html Miner, Dorothy, ‘Since de Ricci - Western Illuminated Manuscripts Acquired since 1934: A Report in Two Parts: Part 1.’ in Journal of the Walters Art Gallery, nos. 29-30 (1966), pp. 68-103, at pp. 87-91, figs. 15, 16. Nordenfalk, Carl, Bokmålningar från medeltid och renässans i Nationalmusei samlingar (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1979), no. 10, pp. 54-55. Sandgren, Eva Lindqvist, Illuminated Manuscripts in Swedish Collections, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/view.jsf?pid=alvin-record%3A471052&dswid=-6776 Smith, Innocent, ‘Beyond the Initials: Melodic Evidence for the Liturgical Origin of a Regensburg Antiphonary’ in Gottesdienst in Regensburger Institutionen: Zur Vielfalt liturgischer Traditionen in der Vormoderne, eds. Harald Buchinger and Sabine Reichert (Regensburg: Verlag Schnell und Steiner, 2021), pp. 295–306. Suckale, Robert, ‘Regensburg, um 1310’ in Regensburger Buchmalerei von frühkarolingischer Zeit bis zum Ausgang des Mittelalters: Austellung der Bayerischen Staatsbibliothek München und der Museen der Stadt Regensburg, (eds.) Florentine Mütherich and Karl Dachs (Munich: Prestel Verlag, 1987), no.71. Suckale, Robert, ‘The “Sweet Style” in Regensburg. An Addition to the Leaves from the Early Fourteenth-Century Antiphonary from the Dominican Convent of the Holy Cross’ in Harvard Library Bulletin 21 (2010), pp. 45 –52.
Collection
Geographical origin
MaterialParchment