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A Romanesque Drawing at Oxford
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 08 January 2012
Extract
The remarkable miniature of the Virgin and Child reproduced here (pl. 1) is found in a copy of St. Augustine's Commentary on Psalms ci-cl now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. It is drawn on the blank recto of the first folio of the text. The verso of the leaf has the opening words of the work set out in capitals with an elaborately decorated initial letter. The Virgin is seated on a throne whose arms end in dogs' heads, and the whole composition is framed by a mandorla. She holds the Infant Christ on her left knee and supports Him with her left hand. In her right hand is a long sceptre ending in a trefoil upon which a bird perches. The bottom of the sceptre has a curious indent where her fingers grasp it. This may be an allusion to the ‘radix Jesse’, since it slightly resembles a root.
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- Copyright © The Society of Antiquaries of London 1942
References
page 17 note 1 MS. Bodley 269 (S.C. 1935), F. Madan and H. H. E. Craster, A Summary Catalogue of Western MSS. in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, ii, part 1, p. 123, date the MS. in the second half of the 12th century. This is certainly too late.
page 17 note 2 A rather later English drawing has much the same monumentality. This is the figure of Christ in Majesty in British Museum Add. MS. 37517, f. 128b, which belongs to the third quarter of the 12th century, and was presumably executed at Christ Church, Canterbury.
page 18 note 1 British Museum, Cotton MS. Vitellius A. XII, a martyrology from St. Augustine's, Canterbury, see British Museum, Schools of Illumination, Part II, English, pl. 5e, and Arundel MS. 91, a Passionale, also from St. Augustine's, Canterbury, show this style particularly well. British Museum, Cotton MS. Caligula A. VII, f. 98, has also a miniature in the same style. A famous example, of course, is the magnificent St. Augustine, De Civitate Dei, in the Laurentian Library at Florence, MS. XII. 17, see New Palaeographical Society, Series I, pls. 138, 139.
page 18 note 2 British Museum, Cotton MS. Titus D. XVI, Prudentius, Psychomachia, from St. Albans, see British Museum, Schools of Illumination, Part II, English, pl. I, a, b, and the drawings at the beginning of a Gospel-book from Bury St. Edmunds, see E. G. Millar, English Illuminated MSS., X-XIII Century, pl. 35, are dated early in the twelfth century. This is too early as the initials in these MSS. appear to be later. The Life of St. Edmund, from Bury St. Edmunds, now in New York, Pierpont Morgan Library, MS. 736, see E. G. Millar, op. cit., pl. 36 as well as the pages of Biblical scenes in British Museum Add. MS. 37472, London, Victoria and Albert Museum MS. 661, New York, Pierpont Morgan Library MS. 521. For these leaves, see James, M. R., The Twenty-fifth Volume of the Walpole Society (1936–1937), pp. 1–23Google Scholar, pls. i-viii. The Walsingham Bible, MS. 22, in the Chester Beatty Collection, see E. G. Millar, The Library of A. Chester Beatty, A Descriptive Catalogue of the Western MSS. i, pp. 85–8, pls. lxiv-lxvii, particularly the large initial I have figures in this style. The remainder of the miniatures in this MS. are less related to this group of MSS.
page 19 note 1 British Museum, Lansdowne MS. 383, see E. G. Millar, English Illuminated MSS., x-xiii Century, pl. 32, 33. It has close relatives in Hereford Cathedral MS. O.V.II, Sermons of St. John Chrysostom, and Oxford, Bodleian, MS. Auct. F.VI. 5 (S.C. 1856), Boethius, De Consolatione Philosophiae, see Farley, Mary Ann and Wormald, F., ‘Three related English Romanesque MSS.’ in The Art Bulletin, xxii, 157–61Google Scholar. The iconography of Lansdowne MS. 383 has affinities with that of the Albani Psalter.
page 19 note 2 e.g. The Bury St. Edmunds Bible, MS. 2, in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, and the Lambeth Bible, MS. 3, in the Lambeth Palace Library, see E. G. Millar, op. cit., pls. 37–41. For the Lambeth Bible see also E. G. Millar, Les Principaux Manuscrits à Peintures du Lambeth Palace, Extrait du Bulletin de 1924 de la Société française de reproductions de MSS. à peintures, pp. 15–31, and pls. II–XII.
page 19 note 3 f. 26, see British Museum Quarterly, ix, pl. xxxv.
page 19 note 4 Cf. an 11th-century miniature of St. Jerome in Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, MS. 389, f. 1b.
page 20 note 1 Cf. Lindisfarne Gospels, see E. G. Millar, The Lindisfarne Gospels, pl. xxxviiic (f. 131b).
page 20 note 2 See A. Goldschmidt, German Illumination, ii (Ottonian Period), pls. 14, 30, 63, 91, 92.
page 20 note 3 f. III verso.
page 21 note 1 See Oxford, Bodleian, MS. Bodley 717 (S.C. 2631) reproduced in New Palaeographical Society, Series II, pls. 191, 192.