Bidspirit auction | HOLANDA (António de) & BENING

HOLANDA (António de) & BENING (Simão). A GENEALOGIA do Infante Dom Fernando. Porto. 1984. - HOLANDA (António de) & BENING (Simão) A GENEALOGIA do Infante Dom Fernando . Fac-Símile do Ms. da British Library. Introdução, Notas, Direcção Artística e Gráfica de Martim de Albuquerque e João Paulo de Abreu e Lima. Porto: Comissariado para a XVII Exposição Europeia de Arte, Ciência e Cultura, 1984. 108, [2] pp.: il.; 485 mm. A monumental facsimile edition of the precious 16th-century codex held in the British Library (Add. 12531), published as part of the 17th European Exhibition of Art, Science and Culture - ”The Portuguese Discoveries and Renaissance Europe” -, sponsored by Banco Borges & Irmão in commemoration of its first centenary. Bilingual edition (Portuguese and English), in a numbered print run. The original manuscript consists of 13 parchment folios that constitute one of the masterpieces of 16th-century European illumination. It was conceived as a long-distance collaboration between António de Holanda, in Lisbon, who provided the drawings, and Simão Bening, of Bruges, who executed the color illuminations based on these sketches. The manuscript was commissioned by Infante D. Fernando of Portugal (1507-1534), son of D. Manuel I, with the purpose of representing the genealogy of the Portuguese royal house from Noah to King D. Manuel I, demonstrating the union of the Portuguese and Spanish royal houses in the person of the Infante – a project of dynastic affirmation that remained incomplete with the premature death of the patron. The chronicler Damião de Góis recorded that D. Fernando commissioned the illuminations from ”the principal master of this art in all of Europe, called Simão de Bruges, in Flanders”. Of the 13 surviving folios, 5 were executed by Bening, 7 by Hollande, and 1 remains unpainted, revealing Hollande's underlying drawing – a circumstance of exceptional interest for the study of the working methods of Renaissance illuminators. The folios were acquired in Lisbon in 1842 by Newton Scott and sold to the British Museum in the same year; two additional folios were acquired in 1868 from Baron Hortega of Madrid. This edition reproduces the 13 illuminated folios in color and gold, accompanied by an introduction and notes by Martim de Albuquerque and João Paulo de Abreu e Lima, which constitute the main study on the manuscript in the Portuguese language. Estimated. ⚑ Auto-translated via Google Translate