Waagen, Gustav Friedrich: Treasures of art in Great Britain: being an account of the chief collections of paintings, drawings, sculptures, illuminated mss., etc. (Supplement): Galleries and cabinets of art in Great Britain (London, 1857)

Letter II. MSS. WITH MINIATURES.

129

from the architecture, and from the whole style of art, particularly
as seen in the already developed aerial perspective, the period of
this MS. can scarcely be pronounced to be earlier than 1520. For
beauty of feeling and tenderness of harmony the Visitation, and
the Virgin and Child adored by St. Augustin, may be considered
the best pictures; for elevation of expression, the Mater Dolorata
supported by St. John, and the Seven Sacraments. The Dutch
character is most strongly seen in the Adoration of the Kings, in
which the colouring is very powerful, and the expression of space,
the house, and the landscape, all of admirable delicacy. The same
may be observed in other backgrounds. Here and there the
arrangements of the objects are borrowed from the Biblia Pau-
perum; as, for example, the Annunciation, and Gideon before the
Fleece, to which an angel is pointing, in a very beautiful landscape.
The very rich decorations of the borders, in the same taste as those
of the foregoing MS., are in point of delicacy almost of the first
order. The preservation of the whole is all that can be desired.
This missal was purchased in 1821 at the sale of Edward Knight,
Esq., by the Duke of Buckingham.

VOL. TV.

K