The collecting field of miniatures and illuminated single leaves has been subject to constant change, in regard to the motivation and preferences of the collectors and also in terms of the esteem given by art-history to the collecting activities which in a parallel development constituted itself as an academic discipline. The ambivalence with which the collecting of single leaves and miniatures from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts is approached sometimes encouraged us to include with the work in our catalogue some reflections on the historical formation of this subject.

The collecting of single leaves can be associated with a highly gifted manuscript illuminator of the turn of the first millennium, known as the “Master of the Registrum Gregorii ,” a name originating from one of his major works. The Gregory Master painted over initials in several older manuscripts or enlarged the repertoire of illuminations in these codices by producing single leaves which were inserted in the manuscripts. Later on, the librarians of the abbeys and monasteries became suppliers of single leaves. Manuscripts that were no longer required were left to the bindery which used the books for the production of protective covers or pastedowns or as material to strengthen the hinge. In the Trier Imperial Abbey of St Maximin in the 15th century—after the emergence of printing—many important works were available in new editions, and people felt that handwritten codices were superfluous. One of the famous Turonian Bibles of the years around 845 was cut into strips, a procedure to which even large and magnificent decorative initials fell victim.

In the 15th century, there was a market for miniatures and single leaves, which prompted the guilds of panel painters and illuminators to take measures of regulation. While the production of manuscripts was based to an increasing extent on the division of labor, single miniatures, which were principally inserted in books of hours, were considered to be desirable and therefore added to the value of manuscripts. This development led to a rise in the number of manuscripts that were designed according to the specific wishes of the buyer. In Flanders, the production of illuminated single leaves became an important task of the scriptoria from the first decades of the 15th century. In this way, the book dealers in Bruges obtained illuminations to a growing degree from other places, above all from Utrecht. Following a lawsuit, a judgement was passed in 1426 in favor of the illuminators of Bruges. The city council decided that only citizens residing in Bruges were allowed to produce illuminations for the local book market, which caused some Utrecht manuscript illuminators to change their place of residence. Individuals who commissioned books of hours very frequently required inclusion of their patron saints as an enlargement of the usual illustration program.

The observation that single leaves and cut-out miniatures (when found on the market) do not always indicate a later detachment will perhaps cause amazement. With the changing way in which people perceived devotion in the late Middle Ages and the increasing influence of wealthy citizens on the art market, it became fashionable to acquire domestic environment miniatures, preferably of religious subjects. The use of miniatures as images of private devotion is amply attested to by interior scenes of the 15th and 16th century panel paintings. For example, the church interiors of Netherlandish places of worship (Rogier van der Weyden should be cited) in some scenes show devotional pictures on the church walls. In reference to the œuvre of the Bruges panel painter Petrus Christus, vellum leaves with depictions of the Holy Face, integrated into private interiors, also belong to the standard repertoire.

While the production, the esteem and the collecting of illuminated single leaves and miniatures gained a new status in the course of the 15th century, this development continues to unfold in the 16th and early 17th centuries. The multivolume Zwolle Bible written between 1462 and 1476 was on display in the chapter house to the north of the choir in St Mary ’s Church in Utrecht (to which the Bible was donated) and from 1670 to 1740 was one of the tourist attractions of the town. The Bible is mentioned in some English travel accounts of the late 17th century; numerous (principally English) travelers added their names and comments on the opened pages of the Bible. But apart from this, 49 single leaves and at least 48 historiated initials were removed and cut out of the six volumes. The comment by Duke Ferdinand Albrecht I von Braunschweig-Lüneburg- Bevern (1636-1687) in the margin of the manuscript transcript of Martin Luther’s so-called September testament (from which some illuminated leaves have been missing since the 17th century—probably removed by a “collector ”) – has become famous: “Du sollst nicht stehlen!”: “You should not steal!”

Simon Bening (ca.1483-1561, Bruges) was one of the first artists to free the production of miniatures from the process of book manufacture and so created autonomous miniature paintings. Bening’s self-portrait of 1558 can be regarded as one of the most impressive examples of this development. Today the miniature on vellum, measuring only 8.5 by 5.7 mm, belongs to the cimelia of the Robert Lehman Collection, New York. In the canon of American collectors of the first half of the 20th century, Robert Lehman (1892-1969)distinguished himself by his preference for leaves which could first and foremost be regarded as excellent examples of manuscript illumination and therefore free from possible textual coherences. From a historical viewpoint, Lehman’s miniatures collection, which he donated to The Metropolitan Museum, offers insight into the mind-set of early collectors of the 19th century. Lehman presumably felt manuscript painting complemented his collection of early Italian and Netherlandish panel painting, his second great passion. In this area of collecting, which focuses on the artistic aspects, one can ascertain parallels with the early English collectors of the first half of the 19th century, such as William Young Ottley (1771-1836, Curator of Prints at the British Museum) and Robert Stayner Holford (1808-1892) whose collection also included Old Masters’ panel paintings.

The beginnings of a systematic collection of single leaves and miniatures date from the end of the 18th century and are based on a multitude of factors including political and economic circumstances and contemporary ideas. The French Revolution provoked the reorganization of the political map, the replacement of feudalism by the bourgeois society and the separation of church and state. The secularization of 1803 brought with it a redistribution of possession of art, to an extent unprecedented in more recent history, on an art market, which redefined and reformed its shape and rules. A number of art dealers strived to gain advantage from the turmoil of the Napoleonic Wars. Some specialized in the trade of miniatures and single leaves from medieval and Renaissance manuscripts which flooded onto the market as the monasteries and abbeys were dissolved.

Luigi Celotti (ca.1768 -1846), an abbot who became an art dealer after the invasion of the Napoleonictroops of Italy in 1796, is generally recognized as the founder of the tradition of collecting miniatures. He organized the often-quoted first sale of a collection of miniatures and single leaves in London at Christie’s in 1825, which included 97 lots and more than 200 miniatures. Celotti managed to purchase a large number of manuscripts from the Napoleonic troops in Rome, where in 1798 the Sistine Chapel and the papal liturgical manuscripts, kept there in the sacristy, was looted. Celotti obtained these manuscripts from the Vatican Library and carried on trading single leaves and cuttings from the papal choir books in a way that can be described as professional even by today’s standards. Therefore, Celotti decisively influenced the genesis and development of the new collecting field. He was able to procure William Young Ottley as editor of the sales catalogue, a representative of the early generation of art historians who often combined their scholarly work with their own collecting activities and connoisseurship.

Ottley’s own collection was sold in 1838 at Sotheby’s in London, and this worked as another stimulating effect on the developing market. In accordance with the prevailing taste, which was still influenced by classicism and favored the art of the ancient world or the Renaissance, Celotti’s sale concentrated on specimens of Renaissance manuscript illumination. Such was his understanding of this newly discovered or rediscovered art genre that he arranged miniatures of the miniaturists in the service of the popes, highly esteemed by Celotti’s contemporaries, such as Giulio Clovio (who was already named during his lifetime as “the Michelangelo of the miniature painters”). Another example is Vincent Raymond and his fragments with ornamental decoration, cut out of manuscripts to make new compositions which gave the impression of small paintings.

The collections of miniatures and single leaves of the first generation were based on an aesthetic-romantic concept. In the course of his studies on the history of medieval Italian art, James Dennistoun (1803-1855) traveled for 12 years throughout Italy, starting in 1836. He also began to collect cuttings in an extensive album of Italian miniatures, which he provided along with detailed records on the place, date and circumstances of the acquisitions. Dennistoun also commented on stylistic considerations, which display a subtle differentiation in relation to the time when they were originally expressed.

For example, his entries read “Lombardo-Venetian” or “passing from the manner of Beato Angelico into that introduced by Domenica Ghirlandaio.” Dennistoun can take credit for directing attention to the so-called “Primitives”— Italian manuscript illumination of the 13th and 14th centuries. Despite the fact that medieval art gained ground in the course of the Gothic Revival in England, the idea of assembling groups of curiosities is inextricably linked to the collection of Dennistoun as well as to the collecting albums from the first half of the 19th century. Neglecting the conditions of production of the illuminations and the nexus with their parent manuscripts, miniatures and single leaves were regarded as wondrous witnesses of medieval painting which in another genre could hardly be grasped. During the 19th century, the detachment and arrangement of cuttings in albums, therefore, did not appear as vandalism in the judgement of contemporaries. Collectors rather looked at themselves as benefactors in the service of the research and preservation of medieval painting.

In Germany, the romantic enthusiasm for the Age of Dürer seemed to have stimulated the pursuit of collecting miniatures. As one of the first German art historians who devoted themselves systematically to the research of manuscript illumination, Friedrich Gustav Waagen (1744-1868), the first director of the Gemäldegalerie des Königlichen Museums in Berlin, must be named. Waagen spent several months in England in 1835 and 1850-1851. He viewed several hundred illuminated manuscripts and miniatures in institutional and private collections, among them Hamilton Place, Holkham, Worburn and Chatsworth, as well as the collections of Robert Holford at Dorchester House, William Young Ottley and James Dennistoun.

Waagen set new standards for the assessment of manuscript illumination and prepared the fertile intellectual soil on which the acquisition of the Hamilton Collection for the Berlin Kuperstichkabinett could be achieved in 1882. Waagen’s plans for a publication on the history of medieval miniature painting never ripened. However, his motivation for this project is documented in his book Works of Art and Artists in Engand, published in 1838. Another type of fine art of which the English are very fond is manuscripts illustrated with miniatures, which are greatly important in the history of painting; for, as greater monuments of early centuries of the Middle Ages are entirely wanting in most countries in Europe and are very rare in others, it is only by means of those miniatures that we can obtain knowledge of the state of painting from the 4th to the 15th century.

Holdings of miniatures and single leaves in the early days of museums until the end of the 19th century were, instead, administered as subsidiaries of the painting departments and hardly actively developed. The early 20th century, however, brought a drastic change with respect to the esteem of manuscript illumination in the museum world. In 1931, Paul Wescher edited the catalogue of miniatures and single leaves, which presumably still represents the most important museum catalogue in this field in Germany. It documented the holdings of the Kupferstichkabinett in Berlin, an essential part of which is the collection of the Dukes of Hamilton acquired in 1882 by the Prussian state for the sum of £70,000.

The acquisition was met with great excitement in scholarly circles and caused a sensation in the national press; in England, the sale of the precious collection was lamented as a loss. Before the sale, the attempt to save it for the nation by means of a national subscription failed. Perhaps we don’t know the true value of something until it is gone. Since the collection was lost to England, causing such outcry, there has been a growing awareness of the value of single illuminated plates. Across the globe, these objects have now taken their rightful place among the pantheon of sculptures, prints and paintings in the world’s great museums, as well as in the greatest private art collections.

Especially in the U.S., singular private collectors and their commitment played a decisive role for the holdings of miniatures, which are now open to the public. Besides Robert Lehman, one could name private collectors whose collecting activities date from the first half of the 20th century, among them John Frederick Lewis (1860-1932), Henry Walters (1848-1931) and Lessing J. Rosenwald (1891-1979). The line of private individuals and institutions actively engaged in the collecting of miniatures today includes many more names, but space does not allow listing them all here.