For Your Consideration:
For Your Consideration:
Illuminated
& With
Exquisite
Miniatures
Basabe Urasandi Santa Coloma
y Mexía, Gerónimo. Manuscript, "Despacho confirmatorio, de
los escudos de armas, nobleza, genealogia, enlazes, y conexiònes, correspondientes
á Don Geronimo de Basabe, Urasandi, Santa Coloma, y Mexia, &c. Natural
de la Ante-Iglesia de San Pedro de Deusto, y vecino de la villa de la Oliva
en Extremadura....." In Spanish, on vellum. Madrid, 1808. Folio, 49 ff. 
Cartas
such as this one, fully in the Romantic school, are on the one hand less common
and, on the other, are often more highly illustrated than those earlier ones.
Spanish calligraphers, illuminators, and miniaturists of the late 18th and
early 19th centuries created heraldic manuscripts at various levels of quality
and at varying costs to those commissioning them, and Gerónimo Basabe
Urasandi Santa Coloma y Mexía seems not to have stinted in his largesse
to the artisans who surpassed themselves in this production. Don Gerónimo's
manuscript is laden with one full-page accomplishment of his coat of arms,
one illuminated page with miniature decoration for the King at Arms, 15 illuminated
capitals accomplished on exquisite fields offering miniature pastoral
vignettes, 6 illuminated cartouches containing family names or caption titles,
4 half-page additional coats of arms, and one "title-page" calligraphically
indited in red, blue, and black within a blue and illuminated frame. In other
words, this manuscript is pleasing to the eye throughout one's reading
or browsing of it. 
The
number of full-page miniatures, half-page coats of arms, and other illumination
and color ornamentation make this an extraordinary example of 19th-century
Spanish manuscripts of this genre.
• Bound in contemporary red velvet with silver clasps. All edges gilt. All pages with illumination with blue silk guards (one guard missing). Extremely good condition. Splendid.
