Morgan Master

One of the illuminators who painted the Wenceslas Bible with over 640 large-format miniatures around 1400 is called the Morgan Master . The artist, who is not known by name, got his emergency name after the pictures he created shortly before his illuminations for the Wenceslas Bible in 1391 to illustrate another, earlier Bible, which is now kept in the Pierpont Morgan Library .

Like all artists working in the so-called Wenceslas workshop , the Morgan master also followed the instructions, some of which can still be found on the pages, as to which and how a scene should be designed graphically. This indicates his work under a workshop management who coordinated the complete edition of the Wenceslas Bible. The Morgan master illustrated 37 pages, eight of them together with the Simson master and one with the painter Frana .

In the Wenceslas Bible, the pictures of the Morgan master are in contrast to the pictures of the Ezra master . If the illustrations are realistic and already show the influence of an emerging European new realistic style, the remains Morgan master a mannered , albeit multifaceted courtly style of the illuminators of Prague committed his predecessors. The different stylistic features of the two artists who were probably working on the Wenceslas Bible at the same time can be seen as an expression of the dynamism and variety of painting styles in the Wenceslas workshop .

Works (selection)

• Bible, Bohemia 1391 (New York, Pierpont Morgan Library , MS M 833)
• Wenceslas Bible, around 1400 (Vienna, Austrian National Library , Cod.Vindob. 2761)
• Gregorius Magnus : Moralia in Job , around 1397/1400 (Herzogenburg, Abbey Library of the Augustinian Canons, Cod. 94/1 and 94/2)
• Codex with works of the Prague Archbishop Johann von Jenstein (Rome, Vatican Apostolic Library BAV Cod. Lat. 1122)

Individual evidence

1. ^ G. Schmidt: Painting until 1450. In: KM Swoboda (Hrsg.): Gotik in Böhmen . Munich 1969, DNB 456786589 , pp. 167-321.
2. ↑ http://corsair.themorgan.org/cgi-bin/Pwebrecon.cgi?BBID=158986
3. ↑ http://www.univie.ac.at/paecht-archiv-wien/ki/hzbg/hzbg_hss_webbilder/index_hzbg_hss_94_bis_370.html#cod_94_bd_1

literature

• Wenceslas Bible. Complete color facsimile edition in several volumes based on the Codices Vindobonenses in Vienna. Austrian National Library, Cod. Vindob. 2761, fol. 32-112. Academic printing and Publishing house, Graz 1987, ISBN 3-201-01251-3 .
• Wenceslas Bible: King Wenzel's magnificent manuscript of the German Bible. Facsimile edition in several volumes. Reduced facsimile edition based on the original in the Austrian National Library Vienna, Cod. 2760, explained by H. Appuhn. Harenberg, Dortmund 1990, ISBN 3-611-01001-4 .
• F. Jelinek: The language of the Wenceslas Bible in its relationship to the language of the most important German literary and legal monuments from Bohemia and Moravia in the 14th century and the imperial chancellery of the Luxembourgers: a contribution to the history of the New High German written language. Hilarian printing house, Gorizia 1898.