Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Tiberius Receiving The Imperial Crown

"In plate 17 there is real Flemish work. Here is pure grisaille at its best ; no infusion of extraneous color in the design, except in the tesselated pavement of yellow and white marble, and no glitter of illumination beyond what is given by a gold crown in the hands of one figure, and a couple of gold chains on the breasts of two others. This is indeed a true historical picture broadly conceived, well composed, and admirably executed. The perspective is excellent, and we realize clearly the size and depth of the large vaulted chamber, lighted only from the doorways and the open window-spaces, in which the eight personages are grouped. The manuscript from which the miniature is taken was written and illustrated, almost undoubtedly, at Bruges about 1470 for a nobleman of the Lannoy family, a member not of the principal house which still flourished in Flanders, but of the transplanted branch in Picardy." 

Plates from O. V. Palaeography: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22

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