Gripla - 01.01.1979, Page 88

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GRIPLA
book printed in Iceland, cf. Páll Eggert Ólason, Menn og menntir, I (Reykjavík,
1919), pp. 394-405. The last known copy of Breviarium Holense, belonging to
Arni Magnússon, was lost in the great fire in Copenhagen in 1728, cf. ibid., p. 404.
2 Unfortunately, the precise reference to this article is not available at present.
—Magnús Már Lárusson mentions the relationship in “Helgener. Island,” Kultur-
historisk leksikon for nordisk middelalder, VI (Reykjavík, 1965), col. 335.
3-8 Cf. notes in Icelandic text.
9 Two other examples where prints served as models in Icelandic pictorial art
apparently during the first half of the 16th century shall be mentioned here, to-
gether with a third which may date from the second half of the century, even from
about 1600. The first example is an Icelandic carved drinking horn now in Griines
Gewölbe in Dresden, tentatively dated to this period, cf. Ellen Marie Mager0y,
“Utskárne drikkehorn fra Island,” By og bygd, XXII (Oslo, 1970), p. 73. In an-
other article by Ellen Marie Mager0y, “En komplett treenighet fra Island” [“A
complete Trinity from Iceland”], Den iconograpliiske post, 6: 2-3: 25-35, 1975,
the author discusses an unusual type of rendering of the Trinity carved on this
horn, which she traces to illustrations in books printed in Paris from about 1500
to 1524, among them Missale Lundense frorn 1514 (Figure 7). On the drinking
horn is carved, besides, as the author points out on p. 34 in the article, a band
with human figures closely related to four pictures on a page in Breviarium Nidro-
siense.
The second example is a silver chalice from the church at Miklibær in Blöndu-
hlíð in northern Iceland, now in the National Museum of Iceland (Inv. No. 6168
a; Figure 8), which because of its shape has been dated to about 1300, cf. Björn
Th. Björnsson, íslenzkt gullsmíði (Reykjavík, 1954), p. 23, or hardly later than
from the first half of the 14th century, cf. Matthías Þórðarson, “Málmsmíði fyrr
á tímum,” Iðnsaga íslands, II (Reykjavík, 1943), p. 294. The chalice has a spheri-
cal knot engraved with the symbols of the Evangelists (Figure 9). The symbols so
closely resemble those found in the corners surrounding the above mentioned
French renderings of the Trinity (cf. Figure 7), that there seems to be little doubt
as to from where the engraver obtained his models.
The third example is a laid and couched altar frontal of Icelandic origin, now
in the Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede, Holland. I have previously, in the article
“íslenzkur dýrgripur í hollenzku safni,” Andvari (Reykjavík, 1962), pp. 127-138,
stated (on p. 130) that the frontal could hardly have been worked prior to 1500,
while more recent research, the results of which will be published elsewhere, points
to a dating from the second half of the 16th century or even about 1600. It seems
evident, however, when comparing the symbols of the Evangelists in the corner
triangles of the frontal (Figure 10) with those found in an illustration in the above
mentioned Missale Lundense (Figure 11)—even though the symbols of St. Mark
and St. Luke are mirrored on the frontal—that the symbols in the illustration or
some closely related rendering must have served as a model for those on the
frontal.