Notice bibliographique
- Notice
Type(s) de contenu et mode(s) de consultation : Texte noté. Image fixe : sans médiation
Auteur(s) : Kidd, Peter (1964-....). Éditeur scientifique
Titre(s) : The McCarthy Collection [Texte imprimé]. Volume II : Spanish, English, Flemish and Central European Miniatures / Peter Kidd
Lien au titre d'ensemble : Appartient à : The McCarthy collection
Publication : London : Ad Ilissum, 2019
Description matérielle : 1 vol. (247 p.) : ill. ; 31 cm
Note(s) : Includes bibliographical references and indexes. - Notes bibliogr., index
"This handsomely produced publication is the first of a two volume set exploring an
outstanding collection of leaves and miniatures from medieval manuscripts. Brimming
with beautiful illustrations, this welcome contribution to medieval scholarship covers
a period from the late 9th to the late 15th centuries and incorporates new discoveries
in this still growing field. The turbulent times when Napoleon's troops were sweeping
over Europe under the banner of secularization, seeking to suppress ecclesiastical
influence within the sphere of political power, had disastrous consequences especially
for ecclesiastical libraries, which were broken up and looted. The Italian religious
houses had their cultural treasures destroyed or moved out of context and spread all
over the world to satisfy a growing market for medieval art. These fatal years (1796-99)
coincide with a major interest in early Italian painting, when French and English
connoisseurs joined their Italian colleagues in a systematic study of early Italian
art, producing fundamental studies on the subject. Essentially the deplorable practice
of breaking up manuscripts and liturgical books was not all that different from the
inglorious process of dismembering giant medieval altarpieces, whose single pieces
were made available to a growing market and, consequently, dispersed among different
collections. Thus, in the present day, one of the major tasks of the art historian
is the attempt to reassemble these fragments and present them in virtual reconstructions,
reconstituting their original context. By doing this, scholars create the foundation
for any further art-historical analysis of a work of art. This task is one of the
important objectives in cataloguing the present collection. The miniatures and single
leaves in the McCarthy collection, which has been formed in the past two or three
decades - between 1990 and today - are manifestly the fruit of the destructive, but
at the same time a conservational effort. Even though assembled in relatively recent
years, the McCarthy collection stands in line with many similar anthologies of miniature
in private or public hands. However, by contrast to other similar collections, the
McCarthy collection has not limited its focus just on one school of European illumination,
the Italian centres of illumination, but aims to present a vast panorama of this sophisticated
art, which, to use Dante's words, was called 'illumination' ('... quell arte ch'alluminar
chiamata è in Parisi'; Purgatorio, XI, 79-80). The present volume is dedicated to
the holdings of single leaves and miniatures from medieval Italian manuscripts, which
cover a period from the late 9th to the late 15th centuries, and are enriched by a
few Byzantine items, appropriately included here and discussed by Georgi Parpulov.
The focus on late 13th- and early 14th-century illumination in the collection demonstrates
McCarthy's predilection for the medieval and early Gothic world, which also becomes
apparent in his holdings of French and German illumination, to be discussed by Peter
Kidd in volume II, to be announced shortly."
Sujet(s) : Manuscrits liturgiques
Enluminure médiévale
Manuscrits à peintures
Genre ou forme : Catalogues
Identifiants, prix et caractéristiques : ISBN 1912168073 (Rel.). - ISBN 1912168138. - ISBN 9781912168132
Identifiant de la notice : ark:/12148/cb46647297m
Notice n° :
FRBNF46647297
(notice reprise d'un réservoir extérieur)