Animal initial with two dogs, cutting [France, last decades of the twelfth century]

Large cutting, with a historiated initial S (opening Senior gaio karissimo the opening of III John from the Canonical Epistles) formed of gold and enclosing swirls of blue, green and white acanthus leaf foliage ending in complex multi-lobed coloured leaves, a small white dog in each compartment, the lower one growling and biting the foliage next to him, all on a red ground and within a thick blue frame heightened by blue penwork, simple initials in red or blue, rubrics in red, partly marked up for reading in red ink, 18 lines of an early gothic bookhand with red touching to capitals and fishtailing to ascenders, but with only occasional and ligatures biting curves, once laid down in an album and with remnants of paper on reverse, now loosely attached to nineteenth-century paper, slight discolouration to front, small cracks and chips to gold, else good condition, 149mm x 137mm.