(15-03-2016, 01:11 PM)VViews wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Hi Koen Gh.,
...I think it was JKP (?) who suggested that the painting quality is bad because it just didn't really matter.
It must have been someone else who said that because I definitely don't look at it that way. I think two or more hands were involved in the painting. Some of them are carefully painted, not only in terms of the edges and flatness of the paint, but also in terms of carefully mixing colors to create different shades of green. At least ONE of the people involved in painting was making an effort to make it tidy and accurate.
To me, the VMS looks like an unfinished document. There are many signs of this, the embellished initial is missing from a thick-with-text page, the labels are missing from parts of the small-plants section, etc.
I think it's likely that the painting was never finished and someone else (or more than one someone else) either tried to finish the manuscript with less care and attention, or tried to increase its value by adding more color if they had thoughts of selling it (which may have happened in the years closer to when the VMS was created, in the years for which we have no provenance).