Sales catalogue: Sotheby's

Date:
July 1877
Reference:
WA/HMM/CM/Sal/20/17
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Sales catalogue: Sotheby's. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/50 (page 22)
    117 Mintature. AN ITALIAN MINIATURE OF THE HIGHEST CLASS, REPRESENTING JEAN FICHET, DOCTOR OF THE SORBONNE, AND FOUNDER OF PARISIAN TYPOGRAPHY, presenting his book “ De Rhetorica,” the first important production of the Paris press, to Pope Sixtus 4th, the founder of the Vatican Library. The Pope is seated on his throne beneath a canopy, wearing his tiara and clothed in a golden mantle, Fichet kneels before him placing the book in his hand. Through a window on the right is seen an exquisite landscape, with a river winding down from the mountains, in the style so often adopted by Raffaelle. The whole piece is surrounded by a magnificent ornamental border, in the four corners of which are introduced cameo paintings, white upon black in classic taste. There are four other exquisitely. finished medallions, that at the bottom representing the Three Graces, in green heightened with gold. Though the accom- panying facsimile gives a perfect idea of the general design, the original must be seen to appreciate the delicacy of finish and the brilliancy of the colour. Whether considered simply as a work of Italian art, or from the interest which attaches to it as authentic and exquisitely painted likenesses of two men so worthy to be commemorated for their services to literature, it may be safely said that this is one of the most valuable works of the kind that has been preserved to us. The authenticity of the portraits and the subject represented has been placed beyond question, by a comparison of this miniature with the very inferior one found in the copy of Fichet’s Treatise, ‘‘ De Rhetorica,” printed on vellum and presented to Pope Sixtus IV. by the author, which is now preserved in the British Museum. This miniature was probably painted for the original Manuscript in folio. In a gilt frame, in a green velvet case. Size of miniature 13 in, by 83 in. END OF SALE.