Historiated border from the Great Choir Book of Ferdinand and Isabella, Castile, Spain. , Ca. 1479-1492.

Description: An elaborate historiated border on parchment, including the royal arms of Aragon and Castile surmounted by an eagle with a halo, together with the royal device of a bundle of seven arrows representing Ferdinand and a yoke representing Isabella (Y stood for yugo and for Ysabel and F stood for flechas and for Fernando, but there might also be some gender symbolism). Also present are all kinds of animals climbing through the foliage. This fragment comes from what was once a magnificent manuscript commissioned by Ferdinand of Aragon (1452-1516) and Isabella of Castile (1451-1504), and probably illuminated by Juan de Carrion, who was working in Avila in the 1470s and is mostly remembered for his illumination of the choir books of the cathedral of Avila. Other leaves or fragments of the manuscript were acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge University, and the Princes of Liechtenstein. In his Spanish Illumination J. Dominguez Bordona calls this manuscript “one of the most sumptuous and artistic series of choirbooks in all Spain.” See also the Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, vol. 2, p. 547. Provenance: Acquired in September 2015 by Laurent Ferri.