Life of Mary and the New Testament in the vernacular with coloured drawings

19 Bruder Philipp, Marienleben and other texts

Illustrated manuscript on paper. Germany, Upper Rhine, c. 1450.

2°, 289 x 205-210 mm. 2 + 130 + 2 leaves: I12 (end of index was probably never written), II-III12, IV10+1,V-VI12,VII6+1,VIII-IX12, X8, XI12, XII6, XIII2, first leaf blank, modern foliation in pencil in the lower right corner (number 6 omitted); on some pages different modern foliation in the upper right corner.Watermarks: bull’s head with cross close to AT4000-424_364,AT5000-516_248 and AT8900-22_80 in WZMA or Piccard VII, 285, 287. – Written space 205-210 x 130-135 mm, 2 columns of 30-35 lines per page.Written in brown ink in bâtarde script, rubrics in red, capitals touched in red. Original chapter numbers in red in the upper margin at the beginning of each chapter. Chapter initials in red and green, 2-7 lines, some of them decorated with penwork. 25 pen-and-ink drawings coloured with washes, half-page and larger. – In good condition, some finger-soiling and staining, slight rubbing on some of the drawings, some leaves carefully repaired, fol. 90 restored on the low margin, 3-4 lines loss of text, fol. 128 loosened; 16th- and 17th-century entries on the last three leaves. – 19th or 20th century blind-tooled grey-brown morocco binding with gilt turn-ins.

PROVENANCE: 1.According to an inscription on the last page the book was given by the Closs family to the ‘White Sisters’: “Diss buoch ist Clossnin gesîn vnd het es den dien wissen schwestren gen.” Probably for the Cistercian Sisters in Fribourg. 2. At least since 1583 the book was the property of Peter Spreng, a sculptor in Fribourg, whose entries we find at the end (cf. Frauenfelder 1929, offprint enclosed). The present manuscript contains the most information about the artist’s life. 3. Jacques Rosenthal in Munich, 3 March 1923 sold to 4.Arnold Mettler-Specker. Inscription on the Exlibris: Kommt durch Fr. Müller in Amsterdam (Mensing) von Rouveyre Paris. N 2312. Handed down to his son, Arnold Mettler-Bener. 5. Parke-Bernet, New York, 29/30 November 1948 (Mettler sale), lot 337. 6. L’Art ancien/Haus der Bücher, sale XXV, 26 May 1955, lot 527. 7. Collection Otto Schäfer, Schweinfurt, OS 50.

TEXT: fol. 1-105v: Life of St Mary – fol. 106-115: Christ and the seven arks - fol. 115v blank – fol. 116-117v: Legend of St Paul of Thebes – fol. 118-123: Legend of St Abraham – fol. 123v-129: Legend of St Mary of Egypt, niece of St Abraham. The successful narrative Marienleben (Die niuve E) was written by the Carthusian monk Philipp in Seitz ( Zice in Slovenia) at the beginning of the 14th century. It relates the life of the Virgin Mary, beginning with her parents, continuing through her marriage, the birth of her son and his life and passion. Finally, Mary ascends to heaven and receives her celestial crown.Around 1400 the original text was rendered into prose and incorporated into history bibles. Lay people could read Brother Philipp’s text as a version of the New Testament in the vernacular. Linguistic analysis has identified an alemannic origin for our book; it is unrecorded in the manuscript census of the ‘Marburger Repertorium’. Christus und die sieben Laden (Christ and the Seven Arks) is a 15th-century devotional text. A merchant, who had chosen the life of a hermit, returns to his worldly life. He meets Christ, disguised as a merchant with a cart and seven coffers. Christ opens every chest, offering the most precious treasures of the world.The hermit-merchant succumbs to the temptation and takes the cart, unaware that he has thus lost the seven blessings. Only afterwards does he realise whom he really met and ruefully gives back the treasures before returning to his hermitage. This edifying treatise represents the 15th-century Alsatian tradition of didactic literature at its best, it survived in 32 manuscripts and 9 printed editions. The last part of the manuscript contains the legends of St Paul of Thebes, St Abraham and his niece St Mary of Egypt.

ILLUMINATION: fol. 7: Virgin with child – fol. 10v: Annunciation to St Joachim – fol. 16: Presentation of Mary to the temple – fol. 23: Joseph’s whip blossoms – fol. 27v: Annunciation – fol. 31v: Nativity – fol. 38v: Adoration of the Magi – fol. 54: Mary and Elizabeth – fol. 62: Baptism of Christ – fol. 70:Triumphant Advent into Jerusalem – fol. 73v: Garden of Gethsemane – fol. 81: Christ nailed to the cross – fol. 90v: Ascension – fol. 97: Death of the Virgin – fol. 105: Coronation of the Virgin – fol. 106v: Christ and the seven arks on a cart – fol. 107v: 1st ark, a palace – fol. 108v: 2nd ark, a wealthy city – fol. 109v: 3rd ark, a garden like paradise – fol. 110v: 4th ark, a loaded table – fol. 111v: 5th ark, a fountain – fol. 112v: 6th ark, a mirror and the celestial lord – fol. 113v: 7th ark, an imperial majesty – fol. 116: unexecuted miniature – fol. 118: St Abraham – fol. 123v: St Abraham and his niece, St Mary, imprisoned. Two artists were responsible for the illustrations of the manuscript at hand, the first for the life of Mary, the second for the legends. Each worked in a similar style and achieved a remarkable expressive quality.To give structure to drapery or shadows they add meticulous hatching and small hooks. Figures are placed in exquisite surroundings and landscapes and buildings are treated with utmost graphic care.The most obvious differences between the two artists are the larger heads of the figures in the illustrations for the legends and the palette each favoured. Both the style and concept of the present manuscript resemble the techniques employed at the Diebold Lauber workshop, active in Hagenau in the middle of the 15th century. Both the colouring and the layout, with red headlines and large spaces for the miniatures, are comparable, although drawings from the Lauber workshop usually have no frame, despite exceptions such as ms. Y19 in Frauenfeld/Switzerland (Kantonsbibliothek, cf. Saurma-Jeltsch 2001 fig. 29/2). However, none of the many painters related to the Lauber workshop had the skilful expressiveness of the two professionals who illustrated the manuscript at hand. Therefore, they must have been working independently from Lauber, but probably not beyond the influence of his shop, maybe somewhere between Basel, Konstanz and Freiburg.

Frauenfelder 1929; Arnim 1984, no. 371; Rapp 1998. WZMA; Saurma-Jeltsch 2001.