[Miniature]. [The gathering of Manna and a Dominican friar reading mass].

$7,257.00

Circular miniature initial separated into two parts by a curved S-shape in gilt. The upper section represents three Jewish figures gathering manna falling from the heavens during the Exodus. To the right a horned Moses is seen. The lower section shows a Dominican friar celebrating mass before a monstrance and an altar. The manna scene serves as a prefiguration of the Holy Host in the monstrance below.

The fragment probably belonged to a Dominican antiphonary, and the verso side contains musical staffs and text fragments. The stylistic elements in the illumination point to a workshop in Southern Germany, probably in Swabia. Comparable in style is a copy, dated to ca. 1455, of Johannes Hartlieb's "Buch aller verbotenen Kunst" (Dresden, Landesbibl., Mscr. M 59). The visual idea of conjoining the scenes is also apparent in the "Biblia Deutsch" published by Johann Sensenschmidt in Nuremberg between 1476 and 1478.