Two historiated initials depicting St Mark and Two Men on a leaf from the Mailhac-Faber Bible, illuminated manuscript in Latin on vellum. [Southern France, late 13th or early 14th century]

£7,500 · Offered by Maggs Bros Ltd · No longer available

A fine leaf with two superb initials, one of St. Mark, from a large Bible produced in southern France, once owned by Sir Thomas Phillipps and Sir Alfred Chester Beatty. Illumination: The style and palette of the initials are unusual, and unlike those of standard 13th-century Bibles from Paris: figures have pink and orange garments edged in white, the folds delineated with black lines; gold is used for backgrounds; the letters themselves use a dark blue and a light burgundy with white ornament; flesh is grey modelled with white; facial features and hair are boldly drawn in black; foliate and hybrid-creature extensions rise and fall in the margin and inter-columnar space. The initial at the beginning of Mark shows the Evangelist full-length holding a book, doubtless his gospel, while the prologue shows two unidentified half-length youths. For further discussion, including a list of sister leaves, etc., see Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, III: French Miniatures (London, 2021), no. 61 pp. 203–11, citing the present leaf at p. 203. Provenance: 1. From the second volume (starting at Isaiah) of a two-volume Bible written in southern France, as suggested by the ink, script, parchment, unusual style, and later provenance. 2. Apparently still in southern France in a religious house in the 16th century when two monks scribbled their names in the margins near the beginning and end of the volume: “Frere Jehan Mailhac” (Mailhac is north-west of Narbonne) (f.2r) and “Frater Renatus Fab

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