THE MASTER OF THE MURANO GRADUAL (fl. c.1430-60)
A FOLIATE INITIAL A
Gold and coloured pigments with ink, on vellum
8.3 x 8.2 cm
PROVENANCE
Anonymous sale, Sotheby’s, 03.07.1984, lot 9 (part of lot);
Property of a Gentleman, sold at auction in London, 2025
LITERATURE
Peter Kidd, MSS Provenance (online blog), The Murano Gradual Initials [II]: The Minor Initials, 6 March 2022;
Ibid., Minor Initials from the Murano Gradual: Two More 19th-Century Albums, 14 October 2023;
Ibid., ' The Minor Initials of the Murano Gradual' [see notes for links]
The present work comes originally from one of the great masterpieces of Italian 15th century illuminated manuscripts, called the 'Murano Gradual'. The artist responsible for the illuminations has been called 'one of the most enigmatic illuminators working in early fifteenth-century Venice' [1] and 'one of the most distinctive artists to illuminate manuscripts in northern Italy' [2]. Although his identity remains elusive, the works given to him all come from a gradual (now disbound) which is thought to have come from the Camaldolese monastery of San Michele on the island of Murano, in the Venetian lagoon.
Our picture is one of the 'minor' initials, of which there are numerous examples spread across collections worldwide, both individually and presented together in albums.
NOTES
Literature Links:
* https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/p/the-minor-initials-of-murano-gradual.html [last accessed 3.12.2025]
* https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/p/the-minor-initials-of-murano-gradual.html [last accessed 3.12.2025]
* https://mssprovenance.blogspot.com/2023/10/minor-initials-from-murano-gradual-two.html [last accessed 3.12.2025]
[1] S. Azzarello & B.C. Keene, 'Spendlors of the Serenissima in a Digital Age: The Master of the Murano Gradual Reconsidered', in Manuscript Studies, vol. 6, no. 2 (Fall 2021), abstract
[2] https://www.getty.edu/art/collection/person/103M1T (last accessed 03.12.2025)