Master of the Wildenstein Solomon

This illuminated initial, dated to around 1500, depicts Saint Ursula and her maiden companions, of which she had 11,000 according to legend, who were all massacred in Germany in the late 4^th century. The letter itself may be the ‘G’ from Gaudeamus omnes in the response of the Feast of the companions of Ursula, celebrated on 21^st October. The rich, bright colours, the evocative background and the jewel-like details on the initial framing the scene make this exquisite piece an extraordinary example of 16^th-century manuscript illumination.

The fleurs-de-lys on Ursula’s robe suggest that the book to which this cutting originally belonged was of French, or at least Francophile, commission, but very little is known about its provenance, other than that a photographic record of it exists in Stefano Bardini’s archive, so it may have at some time been in Florence with him.

The artist, known as the Master of the Wildenstein Solomon, so-called after an illumination today belonging to the collection of the Musée Marmottan-Monet in Paris, has been tentatively identified as Protasio Crivelli, a Milanese miniaturist active during the decades on either side of the turn of the 16^th century.