[ENLUMINATION] - Lot 13

[ENLUMINATION] Large, ornate and illuminated initial R (from a choir book?). Italy, Tuscany or Emilia-Romagna, circa 1490-1500 Dimensions: 152 x 138 mm Framed initial. Initial painted in blue with white highlights, on a burnished gold ground (gold cracks in places) and red enhanced with fine scrolls and acanthus leaves in pink, blue and green and yellow floral motifs, some of the decorations extending into the margins with burnished gold besants. Comparisons with large choir books painted in Italy come to mind, such as those preserved in the Panizzi Library (Commune of Reggio Emilia) or the ornate initials of large choir books produced in Florence, e.g. those attributed to Giovanni Boccardi detto Boccardino il Vecchio (see in A. Labriola, I manoscritti miniati del Museo San Marco a Firenze, Florence, 2020, pp. 84-91).