AN ILLUMINATED VELLUM MANUSCRIPT LEAF WITH AN UNUSUAL AND ESPECIALLY APPEALING HISTORIATED INITIAL SHOWING KING AHASUERUS, ESTHER, AND MORDECAI, ALL CONNECTED BY A HANGMAN'S ROPE, FROM A BIBLE IN LATIN.

TEXT FROM THE OPENING THROUGH THE FIRST THREE CHAPTERS OF ESTHER.

(13th century). 248 x 152 mm (9 3/4 x 6"). Double column, 55 lines of text in a very small, pleasing gothic book hand.

Attractively matted. Capitals struck with red, chapter numbers and headlines in red and blue, two prominent chapter initials in red or blue with elaborate penwork in the same two colors, and one side WITH A FINE HISTORIATED INITIAL TELLING THE STORY OF ESTHER AND MORDECAI, the main part of the capital in three compartments (measuring, together, approximately 60 x 8 mm.) at the top of the column and with a marginal extender stretching the entire length of the text. Faint marginal discoloration, minor soiling and rumpling, but generally in nearly fine condition, the vellum fresh, and the elongated initial extremely well preserved.

This is an especially appealing early Bible leaf with an initial that is replete with narrative communicated in an unusually imaginative visual manner. The Book of Esther tells the story of how the faithful court official Mordecai is saved from being hanged at the hands of the Persian king Ahasuerus' treacherous minister Haman. And it tells of the successful attempt made by the Jewish queen Esther to save her people from Haman's edict of extermination, an order prompted by the fact that Mordecai, a Jew, refuses to prostrate himself in Haman's presence. Our initial seems to conflate the two stories in a clever and artful way. In the bottom compartment of the long initial "I," we see Mordecai, dressed only in tatters from waist to knees, with a noose around his neck. He is done entirely in white against a magenta background, a depiction that suggests his impending lifelessness (there is also a tiny dragon nipping at his feet). The rope stretches upward through the floor of the middle compartment and into the top compartment, where the regally attired king sits with both hands grasping the deadly cord. A good firm tug, and Mordecai is dead. But in the crucial middle compartment sits Esther, who also grasps the rope in such a way as to provide the critical slack necessary to save the would-be victim. The historiation of Bibles produced during the 13th century tends to relate to the text in some specific way (though there are also a certain proportion of generic figures). What is infrequently seen is the incorporation of a number of elements of the story. And what is even more uncommon is the case, as seen here, where the artist takes imaginative liberties with his subject as a way of emphasizing something grand and inherently difficult to portray--like a queen saving her people--in an effective visual way. (ST11316)