Add MS 42497

From the printed British Museum Catalogue of Additions (1967):

'MINIATURES OF THE LIFE OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST, painted lengthwise, in a series of rectangular panels on both sides (recto, scenes 1-5; verso, scenes 6-9) of a vellum strip; the scenes now remaining are:-

(1) The Visitation(?). Imperfect on the left, the panel showing a standing female figure with traces of a second.

(2) Zacharias writing the name JO[HANNES].

(3) St John baptising a man in a tub (an apocryphal scene, derived perhaps from a misunderstanding of a miniature such as that in Stuttgart MS. Bibl. fol. 60, f. 34b, cf. K. Löffler, Schwäbische Buchmalerei, pl. 46c).

(4) Christ meeting St John and his disciples.

(5) The Baptism of Christ. Scenes 2-5 are separated from each other by trees.

(6) St John brought before Herod and Herodias.

(7) St John thrust into prison and (r.) seen through bars.

(8) Two men in red and green parti-coloured clothing, one shooting at a bird in a tree, while the other (r.) stands under the tree, with a bird in his hand. Explained as preparations for the Feast of Herod (scene 9) in Brit. Mus. Quart., vi, 1931-1932, p. 3, but interpreted allegorically by J. Walter, Archives alsaciennes d'Histoire de 1'Art, x, 1932, p. 7. Probably, however, the scene is mere conventional ornament marking the passage of time between scenes 7 and 9.

(9) Herod and Herodias feasting, with Salome tumbling. The background divided into sections painted alternately gold and silver (the latter now tarnished).

The lower part of recto and verso is occupied by a border 2 in. deep containing a row of lozenges with interlacing palmettes. A similar border (imperfect) occupies the left margin of the verso, and a circular medallion (only half of which remains), containing an animal, fills the corner beneath it. A series of unrhymed leonine hexameters (except for verso 11. 9-10, which are rhymed trinini salientes), in Latin, imperfect at beginning and end, runs above the miniatures. The text of these verses is printed in full in Brit. Mus. Quart., Vi, 1931-1932, pp. 108-9, where read (p. 109) 'hinc' for 'huic' in verso 11. 4-5; J. Walter, loc. cit., p. 8, corrects this error, but introduces others in verso 11. 12, 14. The text of the verses corresponds approximately to the scenes beneath them. First complete line, 'Nomen dant illi Iohannes gratia Christi', last complete line 'Funera funesta faciunt convivia festa'.

The style of the miniatures is similar to that of the Hortus Deliciarum, the illustrated encyclopaedic work compiled by Herrad von Landsberg, Abbess of Hohenbourg in Alsace ii 67-1195; this MS. was destroyed in the siege of Strasbourg in 1870, but its contents and appearance are largely known through 19th-cent. descriptions and copies of the miniatures (A. Straub and G. Keller, Herrade de Landsberg, Hortus Deliciarum, Strasbourg, 1879-1899; J. Walter, Hortus Deliciarum, Strasbourg, 1952). Scene 3 of the present MS. combines elements of scenes on ff. 94b and 242b of the Hortus (Straub and Keller, op. cit., pls. xxviii, lxiv) while scene 5 approximates closely to the representation of the same subject on f. 100 (ibid., pl. xxviii; Walter, op. cit., pl. xxiii). Straub and Keller, who reproduced drawings of some of the present scenes (op. cit., pls. xxix ter, xxix quater), but did not know of the existence or nature of the original MS. from which they were taken, believed that they belonged to the Hortus itself (for arguments for and against this view see Brit. Mus. Quart., Vi, 1931-1932, pp. 1-3, and J. Walter, Archives alsaciennes d'Histoire de l'Art, x, 1931, pp. 108-9). It is, however, more probable that, while based largely on similar scenes in the Hortus, the strip was executed independently at a somewhat later date. If not part of the Hortus, the purpose for which the strip was designed remains to be determined, in view of its peculiar format (see below). J. Walter, op. cit., P7, explains it as a miniature devotional polyptych, but Rosalie B. Green, 'The Flabellum of Hohenbourg', Art Bulletin, xxxii, 1951, pp. 153-155 and figs. 1-7, suggests that it was originally bent round in a circle to form a flabellum or liturgical fan (reconstruction in fig. 6). The entire MS. is reproduced, on a reduced scale, in Brit. Mus. Quart., vi, 1931 - 1932, PIS. i-iv, and Rosalie B. Green, loc. Cit., figs. 1 -2, and, in original size, in J. Walter, op. cit., pl. after p. 8. Vellum strip, made up of two membranes fastened together with a narrow strip of vellum laced through slits in the membranes and folded concertinafashion vertically into seventeen sections, each 50 mm. wide, now mounted flat between glass. 870 mm. x 185 mm. Early XIII cent. Executed in Alsace, possibly at Hohenbourg. It appears from the border and roundel at the beginning or left end of the verso (corresponding to the right end of the recto) that at least 25 mm.(perhaps one section of 50 mm.)of the second membrane is missing at this point. If the two membranes were originally equal in length, some 480 mm. are missing from the beginning of the first membrane. The original length of the strip on these suppositions would have been about 1'4 m. According to an undated note on a copy of scene 3 in the CEuvre Notre Dame at Strasbourg (see J. Walter, op. cit., PP. 3-4) the original strip was then in the possession of [Christian] Moritz Engelhardt (1775-1858; author of Herrad von Landsperg und ihr Werk; Hortus Deliciarum, 1818), who had received it from his brother-in-law Johann Gottfried Schweighäuser (1776-1844; Professor of Greek at Strasbourg), who had bought it at the 'Gümpelmarkt' (rag-fair). Other copies, supplied by 'M. Grasset, artistepeintre à Paris', are reproduced by Straub and Keller (see above).'