Der Heilsspiegel aus Kloster Einsiedeln

Description

"The Einsiedeln Speculum was probably made around 1450/60 in the Burgundian Netherlands. It is considered one of the most richly ornamented devotionals ever. Scenes from the New and Old Testaments are entwined in a tightly woven structure of 176 miniatures, in which the lillustrator depicts the story of the fall from grace and the salvation of man, all the way to the Last Judgment ... In this way the Speculum illustrates in word and image what can be found in many medieval illustrated works of art: namely, the conviction that there was a direct link between the New and the Old Testaments ... The 176 soft, coloured pen and ink drawings consecutively ornament the 92 pages ... of the book. All of the edges are decorated with abundant gold foliage, a feature that was unusual for a Speculum. A total of fifty-seven ornamental initials on gold leaf background adorn the text. The Speculum Humanae Salvationis, or 'Mirror of Man's Salvation,' was a new type of book created in the early fourteenth century. From the start it was conceived as a combination of text and image ... Nowhere else did the arts of illumination and panel painting flourish as they did in the cities of Flanders and Northern France under the realm of the Burgundians. It was in this productive climate that the Einsiedeln Speculum, named after its current location, Einsiedeln Abbey, was created around 1450/1460. With its unusual wealth of ornamentation, this manuscript is associated with a master who was well acquainted with the work of the Dutch painter Rogier ven der Weyden and with the books of hours by the Boucicaut Master, one of the most famous masters of book illumination in Paris. There are clues that for a time [the illuminator] may have been in the service of Dreux Budé, one of the city's most influential notaries, as well as secretary to the French kings Charles VII and Louis XI."--

Subjects