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CATHERINE D'AMBOISE (1481-1550), La complainte de la dame pasmée contre fortune, in French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[?Bourges, c.1530]216 x 152 mm. ii paper + 24 + ii paper leaves: 17(of 8, ?i cancelled blank, possibly pastedown), 28, 34, 42(of 4, iii and iv cancelled), 53(of 2 + iii, former pastedown), apparently COMPLETE, written in brown ink in a gothic bookhand in 22 lines between two verticals and 23 horizontals ruled in pink, justification: 150 x 97 mm, rubrics in red, EIGHT LARGE INITIALS in blue and red with acanthus infills on grounds of liquid gold, EIGHT LARGE MINIATURES IN RECTANGULAR FRAMES OF LIQUID GOLD, the first in a classical architectural frame (slight rubbing to miniatures on ff.1 and 14; slight staining to miniature f.19v and facing text page). Late 18th-century calf gilt (two corners and spine restored at head and foot).
PROVENANCE::
1. Catherine d'Amboise (1481-1550): her arms (paley of 6 or and gules) impaled by those of her second husband, Philibert de Beaujeu, seigneur de Lignières (or, a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules with a label of three points gules) appear on the architectural frame of f.1 and identifying Catherine within the miniature on f.6. The couple married in 1501 and Philibert died in 1541; the following year Catherine married Louis de Clèves, comte d'Auxerre. Although it is is possible that the arms signal Catherine's authorship rather than ownership, the work achieved such restricted circulation that this and the other surviving copy with her arms, Paris, BnF, Société des assureurs français, ms 79-7, were almost certainly commissioned by her and at least one owned by her. The only other copy known (Paris, BnF, ms nouv. acq. fr. 19738) is a later manuscript with an abbreviated text lacking some personal references to Catherine and her family.
2. A 19th-century note in French on the second paper leaf misidentifying the arms as those of Catherine's sister, Marie, who died in 1519.
3. John Ruskin (1819-1900): his Brantwood book label inside the upper cover; described as 'untraced' by James S. Dearden, 'John Ruskin, the collector, with a catalogue of the illuminated and other manuscripts formerly in his collection', The Library, 5th series 21 (1966), pp.124-54, no 69. Famed for his championing of earlier Gothic illumination, Ruskin was a frequent purchaser of manuscripts for himself and for the education of artists and potential patrons. The present volume may have appealed as an example of 16th-century script and illumination; his interest in female education may have drawn him to the work of a learned lady, whose woes (had he read the text) might have echoed some of his own spiritual turmoils. Ruskin moved to Brantwood in 1872; the library passed with the rest of his estate to Arthur Severne; Sotheby's, 24 August, 1930, lot 14, when bought by Maggs; Sam Fogg, Illuminated Manuscripts, Catalogue 20, 1999, no 33.
CONTENT:
Catherine d'Amboise, La complainte de la dame pasemée contre Fortune, in eight chapters, ff.1-23v.
Catherine d'Amboise was one of the select group of aristocratic, and even royal, French female authors, who have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Catherine herself was the subject of a thesis by Ariane Bergeron-Foote, Les oeuvres en prose de Catherine d'Amboise, dame de Lignières (1481-1550), Thèse soutenue a l'Ecole des chartes, Paris, 2002; the edition of La complainte established there has yet to be published.
La complainte is the second, and more accomplished, of Catherine's two prose works. The first, Le livre des prudens et imprudens, composed in 1509, drew moral conclusions from the deserved fates of the prudent and imprudent drawn from Adam and Eve to more recent history. In La complainte, the accent is autobiographical not biographical, since the Lady is Catherine herself, who laments the fortune that has deprived her of her parents, her first husband and her only child, her uncle Georges, the Cardinal d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, who had died in 1510, and her brothers. Her eldest brother, Charles II d'Amboise, had died in 1511; Catherine now laments that death has also taken the expectation and the principal glory of the house of Amboise, presumably a reference to the death at the battle of Pavia in 1525 of Charles II's only son. Although this brought a considerable part of the Amboise inheritance to Catherine, it marked the complete reversal of the Amboise fortunes from their apogee when Georges d'Amboise played a leading role in political and cultural life and Charles II was one of the leaders of the French armies in Italy and governor of Milan.
An earlier date might be deduced from the style of the manuscript but it seems unlikely that Catherine's words could refer to anyone other than the head of the family, although her cousin Jacques d'Amboise, seigneur de Bussy, son and heir of Charles I's eldest married brother, was killed at Marignano in 1515. Catherine might have been considering the subject of her treatise for some time before the culminating tragedy, presumably of 1525. Inspired by Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae, which was widely available in French, Catherine has Reason instead of Philosophy as her chief mentor. Reason, assisted by other allegorical figures, shows her the benefits of adversity in this world and leads her and a noble lady, encountered on the way, through the gateway of Self Knowledge, guarded by the gatekeeper Knowledge of God, to the Park of Divine Love where Patience consoles them for their troubles that, although never approaching the sufferings of Christ, may yet help them to spiritual joys.
Catherine d'Amboise did not seek a wide circulation for her works, whether in prose or verse. Like her brother's sister-in-law, Anne de Graville, but unlike her illegitimate nephew, the poet Michel d'Amboise, she did not apparently wish for publication in print. Commissioning richly decorated manuscripts may have seemed a natural course for the niece of Georges d'Amboise, in his time one of the greatest patrons of illumination, as well as of the other visual arts (see F. Avril and N Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, 1993, pp.410-16).
ILLUMINATION:
The two full copies of La complainte with Catherine's arms were probably commissioned by her in Bourges. She spent much of her life at the château of Lignières in Berry and also had a residence in Bourges itself. The eight miniatures in the present lot relate to the work of the Master of Spencer 6, named from a luxurious book of hours in the New York Public Library and possibly identifiable with Laurent Boiron, an illuminator and librarire documented in Bourges between 1480 and 1510 (see The Splendor of the Word, J.J.G. Alexander, J.H. Marrow and L. Freeman Sandler eds, 2005, no.62). His characteristic figures are found in bold classicising architectural settings or simplified landscapes receding into blue distances, as seen in the Master's later works such as the Hours of Guillaume de Seigne and Catherine Fortier, who married in 1508 (London, BL, Harley 2969, see J. Backhouse, Illuminations from Books of Hours, 2004, no 32) and the copies of Xenophon's Anabase made for the translator to present to Charles II, duke of Savoy, and to the King of England, both also datable after 1508 (BnF ms fr. 701 and BL, Royal 19 C VI, see for them and the Master, Avril and Reynaud, pp.343-5). Whether the Master himself was still active in the 1520s is debatable; at the least, these appealing miniatures show that his style was still a medium for effective and attractive illustration.
Despite the probable proximity of author and artist, the miniatures do not follow every detail of Catherine's allegory. Reason, for instance, is depicted in a pale blue tunic instead of the white satin robe of the text; her wings are shown as green instead of red and her laurel crown is omitted; her face shining like the sun achieves a more acceptable artistic form as a gold halo. From the difficulty in identifying some of the figures from the text, it seeems likely that the illuminator was given a separate set of instructions which varied in precision of detail. Nonetheless, the allegorical figures are clearly presented, as Catherine, in a succession of luxuriously fashionable costumes, receives their instructiion. The miniatures emphasise the autobiographical aspects of the treatise by twice showing the Lady, the I of the treatise, individualised and identified by her coat of arms. Through text and closely related images Catherine asserts her authorship and the successful completion of her spiritual journey.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f.1 Catherine d'Amboise, identified by her arms on the framing, receives a letter of bad news from a kneeling messenger.
f.2v Reason revives Catherine, who has swooned after reading the letter, by sprinkling her with the water of Self-Knowledge that returns people from the swoon of Ignorance.
f.6 Reason explains the nature of Fortune to Catherine, who stands the other side of a tree with a shield of her arms.
f.8 ?Fortune, half dressed as a soldier and half as a civilian, is seated with his feet on the unstable globe of the world; a foppishly dressed soldier to his right may represent how much of a man's prime is spent in warfare; to his left, the grim lady in tattered golden gown, holding sword and birch, may represent the miseries of the world that can befall a man.
f.12 Catherine turns to flee from Evil Sadness, the mother of Despair, who is dressed in a black robe patterned with gold tears, bound around by rope, and holds a sword and a pot of poison.
f.14 Reason expounds Patience to Catherine, as they sit in a renaissance loggia.
f.16v Reason shows Catherine the stony path leading through pleasant meadows to Patience.
f.19v The small seated figure of Knowledge of God guards the gateway to the Park of Divine Love, within which Catherine and the Lady encountered on the way kneel with Reason before Patience, surrounded by the symbols of the martyrs and the Instruments of Christ's Passion.
[?Bourges, c.1530]216 x 152 mm. ii paper + 24 + ii paper leaves: 1
PROVENANCE::
1. Catherine d'Amboise (1481-1550): her arms (paley of 6 or and gules) impaled by those of her second husband, Philibert de Beaujeu, seigneur de Lignières (or, a lion rampant sable armed and langued gules with a label of three points gules) appear on the architectural frame of f.1 and identifying Catherine within the miniature on f.6. The couple married in 1501 and Philibert died in 1541; the following year Catherine married Louis de Clèves, comte d'Auxerre. Although it is is possible that the arms signal Catherine's authorship rather than ownership, the work achieved such restricted circulation that this and the other surviving copy with her arms, Paris, BnF, Société des assureurs français, ms 79-7, were almost certainly commissioned by her and at least one owned by her. The only other copy known (Paris, BnF, ms nouv. acq. fr. 19738) is a later manuscript with an abbreviated text lacking some personal references to Catherine and her family.
2. A 19th-century note in French on the second paper leaf misidentifying the arms as those of Catherine's sister, Marie, who died in 1519.
3. John Ruskin (1819-1900): his Brantwood book label inside the upper cover; described as 'untraced' by James S. Dearden, 'John Ruskin, the collector, with a catalogue of the illuminated and other manuscripts formerly in his collection', The Library, 5th series 21 (1966), pp.124-54, no 69. Famed for his championing of earlier Gothic illumination, Ruskin was a frequent purchaser of manuscripts for himself and for the education of artists and potential patrons. The present volume may have appealed as an example of 16th-century script and illumination; his interest in female education may have drawn him to the work of a learned lady, whose woes (had he read the text) might have echoed some of his own spiritual turmoils. Ruskin moved to Brantwood in 1872; the library passed with the rest of his estate to Arthur Severne; Sotheby's, 24 August, 1930, lot 14, when bought by Maggs; Sam Fogg, Illuminated Manuscripts, Catalogue 20, 1999, no 33.
CONTENT:
Catherine d'Amboise, La complainte de la dame pasemée contre Fortune, in eight chapters, ff.1-23v.
Catherine d'Amboise was one of the select group of aristocratic, and even royal, French female authors, who have attracted considerable attention in recent years. Catherine herself was the subject of a thesis by Ariane Bergeron-Foote, Les oeuvres en prose de Catherine d'Amboise, dame de Lignières (1481-1550), Thèse soutenue a l'Ecole des chartes, Paris, 2002; the edition of La complainte established there has yet to be published.
La complainte is the second, and more accomplished, of Catherine's two prose works. The first, Le livre des prudens et imprudens, composed in 1509, drew moral conclusions from the deserved fates of the prudent and imprudent drawn from Adam and Eve to more recent history. In La complainte, the accent is autobiographical not biographical, since the Lady is Catherine herself, who laments the fortune that has deprived her of her parents, her first husband and her only child, her uncle Georges, the Cardinal d'Amboise, Archbishop of Rouen, who had died in 1510, and her brothers. Her eldest brother, Charles II d'Amboise, had died in 1511; Catherine now laments that death has also taken the expectation and the principal glory of the house of Amboise, presumably a reference to the death at the battle of Pavia in 1525 of Charles II's only son. Although this brought a considerable part of the Amboise inheritance to Catherine, it marked the complete reversal of the Amboise fortunes from their apogee when Georges d'Amboise played a leading role in political and cultural life and Charles II was one of the leaders of the French armies in Italy and governor of Milan.
An earlier date might be deduced from the style of the manuscript but it seems unlikely that Catherine's words could refer to anyone other than the head of the family, although her cousin Jacques d'Amboise, seigneur de Bussy, son and heir of Charles I's eldest married brother, was killed at Marignano in 1515. Catherine might have been considering the subject of her treatise for some time before the culminating tragedy, presumably of 1525. Inspired by Boethius's De consolatione philosophiae, which was widely available in French, Catherine has Reason instead of Philosophy as her chief mentor. Reason, assisted by other allegorical figures, shows her the benefits of adversity in this world and leads her and a noble lady, encountered on the way, through the gateway of Self Knowledge, guarded by the gatekeeper Knowledge of God, to the Park of Divine Love where Patience consoles them for their troubles that, although never approaching the sufferings of Christ, may yet help them to spiritual joys.
Catherine d'Amboise did not seek a wide circulation for her works, whether in prose or verse. Like her brother's sister-in-law, Anne de Graville, but unlike her illegitimate nephew, the poet Michel d'Amboise, she did not apparently wish for publication in print. Commissioning richly decorated manuscripts may have seemed a natural course for the niece of Georges d'Amboise, in his time one of the greatest patrons of illumination, as well as of the other visual arts (see F. Avril and N Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, 1993, pp.410-16).
ILLUMINATION:
The two full copies of La complainte with Catherine's arms were probably commissioned by her in Bourges. She spent much of her life at the château of Lignières in Berry and also had a residence in Bourges itself. The eight miniatures in the present lot relate to the work of the Master of Spencer 6, named from a luxurious book of hours in the New York Public Library and possibly identifiable with Laurent Boiron, an illuminator and librarire documented in Bourges between 1480 and 1510 (see The Splendor of the Word, J.J.G. Alexander, J.H. Marrow and L. Freeman Sandler eds, 2005, no.62). His characteristic figures are found in bold classicising architectural settings or simplified landscapes receding into blue distances, as seen in the Master's later works such as the Hours of Guillaume de Seigne and Catherine Fortier, who married in 1508 (London, BL, Harley 2969, see J. Backhouse, Illuminations from Books of Hours, 2004, no 32) and the copies of Xenophon's Anabase made for the translator to present to Charles II, duke of Savoy, and to the King of England, both also datable after 1508 (BnF ms fr. 701 and BL, Royal 19 C VI, see for them and the Master, Avril and Reynaud, pp.343-5). Whether the Master himself was still active in the 1520s is debatable; at the least, these appealing miniatures show that his style was still a medium for effective and attractive illustration.
Despite the probable proximity of author and artist, the miniatures do not follow every detail of Catherine's allegory. Reason, for instance, is depicted in a pale blue tunic instead of the white satin robe of the text; her wings are shown as green instead of red and her laurel crown is omitted; her face shining like the sun achieves a more acceptable artistic form as a gold halo. From the difficulty in identifying some of the figures from the text, it seeems likely that the illuminator was given a separate set of instructions which varied in precision of detail. Nonetheless, the allegorical figures are clearly presented, as Catherine, in a succession of luxuriously fashionable costumes, receives their instructiion. The miniatures emphasise the autobiographical aspects of the treatise by twice showing the Lady, the I of the treatise, individualised and identified by her coat of arms. Through text and closely related images Catherine asserts her authorship and the successful completion of her spiritual journey.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f.1 Catherine d'Amboise, identified by her arms on the framing, receives a letter of bad news from a kneeling messenger.
f.2v Reason revives Catherine, who has swooned after reading the letter, by sprinkling her with the water of Self-Knowledge that returns people from the swoon of Ignorance.
f.6 Reason explains the nature of Fortune to Catherine, who stands the other side of a tree with a shield of her arms.
f.8 ?Fortune, half dressed as a soldier and half as a civilian, is seated with his feet on the unstable globe of the world; a foppishly dressed soldier to his right may represent how much of a man's prime is spent in warfare; to his left, the grim lady in tattered golden gown, holding sword and birch, may represent the miseries of the world that can befall a man.
f.12 Catherine turns to flee from Evil Sadness, the mother of Despair, who is dressed in a black robe patterned with gold tears, bound around by rope, and holds a sword and a pot of poison.
f.14 Reason expounds Patience to Catherine, as they sit in a renaissance loggia.
f.16v Reason shows Catherine the stony path leading through pleasant meadows to Patience.
f.19v The small seated figure of Knowledge of God guards the gateway to the Park of Divine Love, within which Catherine and the Lady encountered on the way kneel with Reason before Patience, surrounded by the symbols of the martyrs and the Instruments of Christ's Passion.
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