Phillip II, King of Spain, 1556-1598
£4,063
Rare Books, Maps, Manuscripts & Photographs
Auction: 10 January 2007 at 11:00 GMT
Description
Carta Executoria de Hidalguia in favour of Francisco de Escalante of Seville, royal official in Seville and Granada, in Spanish, illuminated manuscript on vellum, 43 leaves, (7 blank), plus 2 contemporary flyleaves, lacking one leaf after f1, otherwise complete, 34 lines, written in dark brown ink in a fine rounded gothic hand, every page within a gold border with elaborate foliate flourishing at top and bottom of pages, fourteen large illuminated initials- (3 to 10-line, mostly 7 line) in designs of gold heightened with colour on coloured grounds with white tracery, large portrait miniature of Philip II enthroned, 107 x 97mm., showing the king seated on a renaissance throne lettered ''Filipus 2'', four pages with full-page miniatures or coats-of-arms surrounded by full borders, showing 1) the Crucifixion, the grantor and his son kneeling by the Cross, landscape background, scatter border of naturalistic flowers in the Ghent/Bruges style, 2) St. James on horseback vanquishing the Moors, landscape background, border of putti,caryatids, etc. 3) and 4) coats-of-arms within very elaborate mantling and with full borders including flowers, putti with masks, etc., additions at end, signatures at both ends, fine contemporary Spanish goatskin gilt and blind-stamped over paste boards, roll-tooled in concentric panels of classical heads within foliage, military accoutrements and ropework designs, gilt stamped with floral and rosette tools and a cockle shell, binding skillfully repaired, 304 x 213mm., [Granada, 9 December, 1564], green morocco-backed buckram box
Footnote
Note: The fine Grenadan binding is by the same binder as a Carta Executoria of 1570 which was lot 2997 in the sale of Major J.R.Abbey at Sothebys, 20 June 1978; the first and second roll-tooled borders are identical with the first and third on the Abbey binding and four of the small gilt floral stamps occur on both bindings.