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HOURS OF GUYOT II LE PELEY, Book of Hours, use of Troyes and Rome, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Bourges, c.1480-85]
130 x 94mm. 150 leaves: 16, 26, 3-108, 117, 12-138, 141(of 2, lacking ii), 157(of 8, lacking i), 16-208, 213(of 4 final blank cancelled), the two lacking leaves with miniatures, 15 lines written in brown ink in a lettre batârde between two verticals and 18 horizontals ruled in pink, justification: 66 x 48mm, rubrics in pink, calendar written in red, blue and gold, one- and two-line initials of liquid gold on grounds of brown, pink or blue, decorated with liquid gold, some of the two-line initials containing camaïeu d'or heads, SIXTEEN HISTORIATED INITIALS four lines high, THREE SMALL MINIATURES of evangelists, ONE DOUBLE-PAGE AND THIRTEEN FULL-PAGE MINIATURES IN ARCHITECTURAL FRAMES, the margins of every text-page filled with illumination, inner borders of patterned liquid gold, upper borders either of foliage against a gold ground inhabited with coloured cherubs or grotesques or of fictive golden sculptural decoration, TWENTY-FOUR CALENDAR MINIATURES in the side borders, TWO HUNDRED AND SIXTY-NINE ARCHED LATERAL MINIATURES WITH STANDING FIGURES OR SCENES relating to the text they flank, TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY-THREE BAS-DE-PAGE MINIATURES WITH NARRATIVE SCENES FROM THE OLD TESTAMENT, running from the creation of Man to the end of II Kings (cropping to upper and lower elements of architectural frames of full-page miniatures, slight thumbing to some borders and a few pigment losses, occasional offsetting or light smudging, one wormhole in first two leaves and one at upper edge of final leaf, tiny hole in vellum of Resurrection miniature). French 18th-century gold-tooled red morocco by Derome?, wide dentelle border composed of a variety of small tools including a bird, spine gilt in seven compartments, gilt turn-ins, gilt star-patterned endpapers, gilt edges (scratches on both covers). Olive green morocco case by Gruel.
PROVENENCE:
1. Guyot II Le Peley of Troyes: his coat of arms in the upper border of f.1 and on the shield held by Gemini, f.5v, azure, two doves affronted argent, a chief gules with a label argent and a star or. These arms are one of a pair that identify the owners of a Book of Hours in Paris (S.M.A.F. Ms 79-5) in a miniature added to the manuscript around 1475-80. The miniature shows Guyot II Le Peley with his wife Nicole Hennequin and their family kneeling before St Nicholas. The same anonymous Troyes illuminator illustrated another manuscript for Guyot, a copy of Pierre Michault, Le Doctrinal rural (Paris, BnF, Fr.1654), other manuscripts for the Molé family -- one of the most prosperous of the mercantile families of Troyes and relatives of the Le Peley -- and a miniature added to the Hours of Guyot's daughter Jeanne and her husband Edme Le Boucheret, mayor of Troyes. A member of the Molé family also owned a Book of Hours illuminated by Jean Colombe (Rodez, Soc. des lettres, sciences et arts de l'Aveyron, no 1) and two other manuscripts from Colombe's atelier bear the arms of a member of the Le Peley family: F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, Paris 1994, pp.186-189, 327 and 335.
In the present Hours both the main Office of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead are for the use of Troyes, and the Calendar includes the feasts of the major patrons of the city in gold. Other Books of Hours for the liturgical use of Troyes issued from Colombe's atelier; it is likely that this was the result of the influence of Louis de Laval, commissioner of some of Colombe's most prestigious works, who was governor of Champagne.
2. The 16th-century miniature added on the final verso, showing two angels holding a chalice with a rayed host hovering over it, is above a banderole with 'IBI AMOR UBI FIDES': this may have had emblematic significance for a later owner.
3. Gaetano Poggiali of Livorno (1759-1813), bibliophile and publisher, no 12 in his collection: his signature and inventory number on verso of endleaf.
4. Henri Bordes (1842-1914): his ex-libris inside upper cover. Henri Bordes, a ship-owner from Bordeaux, put together a wide-ranging and fine collection of printed books and manuscripts recorded in privately printed and sale catalogues of the 1870s.
5. Henri Gallice of Éperney: his signature on verso of front endleaf. Gallice is most renowned as a bibliophile for the exceptional library of hunting books he put together at the end of the 19th century.
CONTENT:
Calendar ff.1-12v; Gospel extracts ff.14-19; variants of the Office of the Virgin, use of Rome ff.19v-42; Office of the Virgin, use of Troyes ff.42v-94: matins f.42v, lauds f.60, prime f.69, terce f.74, sext f.77v, none f.80v, vespers f.84, compline f.90; Short Hours of the Cross ff.94v-98; Short Hours of the Holy Spirit, lacking end ff.98v-100v; Seven Penitential Psalms, lacking opening ff.101-115v; Office of the Dead ff.116-150; added miniature with angels, displaying host and motto f.150v.
This is one of several Books of Hours for the use of Troyes to have been illuminated by Colombe: it is unique among them in also having the variant seasons for the Office of the Virgin according to Roman use. I am grateful to Roger Wieck and James Marrow for alerting me to an Hours in the New York Public Library -- the only other one known to either with Offices of the Virgin for two uses (MA 45).
ILLUMINATION:
This is an altogether exceptional Book of Hours in both the quality and the quantity of its illumination: it combines full-page miniatures that are amongst the finest and most delicate works of Jean Colombe with extended cycles of marginal miniatures that fill the borders of every page.
Jean Colombe belonged to a prominent family of artists from Bourges, the chief town of the duchy of Berry. He was recorded there from 1463 until 1493 and, with the exception of a few short periods, he is believed to have lived and worked there continuously. Nonetheless, neither his reputation nor his activity were restricted to his native city: he was patronised and protected by Charlotte of Savoy, queen of Louis XI and a noted bibliophile. He illuminated manuscripts for the queen, her daughter Anne of Beaujeu and various members of the court. It was probably through Charlotte that Colombe was introduced into the service of her nephew, Charles I, Duke of Savoy, who retained him to complete two unfinished manuscripts in his library: the splendid Apocalypse by Jean Bapteur and Perronet Lamy (Escorial, E. Vit. 5) and -- probably the most celebrated of all Books of Hours -- the de Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry. Colombe was appointed offical illuminator to the Duke of Savoy in 1486, but payment made to him in the previous year apparently relates to his work in the Très Riches Heures.
Colombe was commissioned to illustrate secular as well as religious texts and seems to have taken particular delight in providing scenes set within complex architecture or expansive landscapes and, wherever possible, containing crowds of onlookers. His narrative enthusiasm and invention were evidently keenly appreciated and, with the aid of his atelier -- including his son and grandson -- he decorated a large number of manuscripts including some with the most ambitious of illustrative ensembles.
He brought the same skills and interests to the Books of Hours he illuminated for his most important patrons, most spectacularly in the Hours of Louis de Laval (Paris, BnF, Lat. 920), which was completed, with the help of collaborators and assistants, in separate campaigns between 1470 and 1489: C. Schaefer, 'Nouvelles observations au sujet des Heures de Louis de Laval', Arts de l'Ouest, 1980, pp.33-68; Avril and Reynaud Les manuscrits, pp.328-332. Although the number of full-page miniatures in the Le Peley Hours does not compare with the dizzying profusion in the Laval Hours, both show the same commitment to use every available surface to provide illustration or decoration: they have an upright miniature in the outer border of every text-page that contains a subject related to the text it flanks -- for example, the Office of the Cross has scenes from the Passion -- while the bas-de-pages beneath carry a continuous sequence of narrative scenes from the Books of the Old Testament. These scenes in the Laval Hours were added during the later campaign of illumination, c.1485-89, whereas they are an integral part of the decorative scheme in the Le Peley manuscript. It is possible that the successful development of the format in the latter led to its adoption in the remodelled Laval Hours: Laval, Governor of Champagne, is usually thought to be the link between the notables of Troyes and Colombe.
The Old Testament scenes in the two manuscripts are often similar, but the cycles are not identical. It is not simply that the Laval cycle is longer, and extends into the Book of Daniel, for there are sequences in the Le Peley Hours that are omitted from the Laval Hours. One that is particularly charming tells the story of Adam and Eve as the first parents: it starts with Eve tending the infants Cain and Abel (f.3) includes scenes of their finding Abel's body (f.5v), carrying it home (f.6) and burying it (f.6v). The sequence ends with blind Lamech shooting Cain (f.7v) and the burial of Adam (f.8v).
The pageant of lively and varied border scenes -- ranging through battles, plagues, torments and miracles -- is punctuated by a series of full-page miniatures that demonstrate Colombe's style at its most serene and polished. There is no sign of the hasty schematic treatment that characterises the more routine products of his workshop. In the Le Peley Hours the compositions are involved and detailed and the finish precise and delicate.
While the involved architectural framing with fictive sculpture is very close to Colombe's framing of miniatures in the Très Riches Heures, his miniatures in the Le Peley Hours have none of the quotations from the de Limbourgs' work that are apparent in the manuscripts he illuminated after working on their masterpiece. It seems likely that the Le Peley Hours should be dated to the early years of the 1480s at a similar time to the charming, but simpler, manuscript in Paris (BnF N.a.lat.3181) with which it shares palette, handling and figure groups: Avril and Reynaud, Les Manuscrits, pp.334-5.
The full-page miniatures in the Le Peley Hours represent the pinnacle of Colombe's achievement at this scale. He combines ambitious settings and dramatic action with a meticulous handling rare in his work: the Betrayal of Christ, taking place at night under a starry sky, is lit by the torches of the myriad soldiers; the Office of the Dead opens with an arresting scene of a cemetery surrounded by ossuaries, with -- in the foreground and close to the picture-plane -- a near-skeletal Death climbing from a tomb towards the spectator.
The mood is more serene in the scenes from the life of the Virgin but they are comparably rich in treatment, and none more than the Annunciation. Exquisitely painted, it is a development of his presentation of the subject over a double-page opening in the Hours of Anne of Beaujeu (New York, PML, M.677). The poses of the figures and the setting opening onto a landscape seem to echo Jean Fouquet's miniature in the Robertet Hours (PML, M.834), another unfinished manuscript that Colombe had been called upon to complete. The Le Peley Annunciation combines all the finest and most appealing features of Colombe's art and it is fitting that it is there, in the border of Gabriel's mantle, that he included his signature quotation from Psalm 150, OMNIS SPIRITUS LAUDET DOMINUM.
The side miniatures in the Calendar contain an occupation (recto) and the zodiac sign (verso) appropriate to each month.
The subjects of the full-page miniatures are as follows:
f.14 St John on Patmos
ff.42v and 43 Annunciation
f.60 Visitation
f.69 Nativity
f.74 Annunciation to the shepherds
f.77v Adoration of the Magi
f.80v Presentation in the Temple
f.84 Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin
f.90 Coronation of the Virgin
f.94v Christ washing St Peter's feet
f.95 Betrayal
f.98v Resurrection
f.116 Death rising from a tomb in a cemetery
f.150 Two angels with chalice and host, motto IBI AMOR UBI FIDES
The scenes in the lower borders are a continuous cycle of narratives taken from the books of the Old Testament as follows:
ff.1-68v Genesis, scenes from the Creation of man (ch.1) to the Burial of Joseph (ch.50)
ff.69v-95v Exodus, scenes from Pharoah ordering the affliction of the Children of Israel (ch.1) to the adoration of the Golden Calf (ch.32)
ff.96-96v Leviticus (ch.10), the destruction of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, and the Burial of Nadab and Abihu
ff.97-110v Numbers, from the woman suspected of adultery (ch. 5) to Moses with the daughters of Zelophehad (ch.36)
ff.111-113 Deuteronomy, from Moses kneeling before God begging mercy for the Children of Israel (ch.9) to the Burial of Moses (ch.34)
ff.113v-123 Joshua, from Joshua sending out spies (ch.2) to the slaying of the five kings (ch.10)
ff.123v-150 II Samuel (II Kings), from Amnon deflowering Tamar (ch.13) to Gad, David's prophet, addressing David (ch.24)
[Bourges, c.1480-85]
130 x 94mm. 150 leaves: 1
PROVENENCE:
1. Guyot II Le Peley of Troyes: his coat of arms in the upper border of f.1 and on the shield held by Gemini, f.5v, azure, two doves affronted argent, a chief gules with a label argent and a star or. These arms are one of a pair that identify the owners of a Book of Hours in Paris (S.M.A.F. Ms 79-5) in a miniature added to the manuscript around 1475-80. The miniature shows Guyot II Le Peley with his wife Nicole Hennequin and their family kneeling before St Nicholas. The same anonymous Troyes illuminator illustrated another manuscript for Guyot, a copy of Pierre Michault, Le Doctrinal rural (Paris, BnF, Fr.1654), other manuscripts for the Molé family -- one of the most prosperous of the mercantile families of Troyes and relatives of the Le Peley -- and a miniature added to the Hours of Guyot's daughter Jeanne and her husband Edme Le Boucheret, mayor of Troyes. A member of the Molé family also owned a Book of Hours illuminated by Jean Colombe (Rodez, Soc. des lettres, sciences et arts de l'Aveyron, no 1) and two other manuscripts from Colombe's atelier bear the arms of a member of the Le Peley family: F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, Paris 1994, pp.186-189, 327 and 335.
In the present Hours both the main Office of the Virgin and the Office of the Dead are for the use of Troyes, and the Calendar includes the feasts of the major patrons of the city in gold. Other Books of Hours for the liturgical use of Troyes issued from Colombe's atelier; it is likely that this was the result of the influence of Louis de Laval, commissioner of some of Colombe's most prestigious works, who was governor of Champagne.
2. The 16th-century miniature added on the final verso, showing two angels holding a chalice with a rayed host hovering over it, is above a banderole with 'IBI AMOR UBI FIDES': this may have had emblematic significance for a later owner.
3. Gaetano Poggiali of Livorno (1759-1813), bibliophile and publisher, no 12 in his collection: his signature and inventory number on verso of endleaf.
4. Henri Bordes (1842-1914): his ex-libris inside upper cover. Henri Bordes, a ship-owner from Bordeaux, put together a wide-ranging and fine collection of printed books and manuscripts recorded in privately printed and sale catalogues of the 1870s.
5. Henri Gallice of Éperney: his signature on verso of front endleaf. Gallice is most renowned as a bibliophile for the exceptional library of hunting books he put together at the end of the 19th century.
CONTENT:
Calendar ff.1-12v; Gospel extracts ff.14-19; variants of the Office of the Virgin, use of Rome ff.19v-42; Office of the Virgin, use of Troyes ff.42v-94: matins f.42v, lauds f.60, prime f.69, terce f.74, sext f.77v, none f.80v, vespers f.84, compline f.90; Short Hours of the Cross ff.94v-98; Short Hours of the Holy Spirit, lacking end ff.98v-100v; Seven Penitential Psalms, lacking opening ff.101-115v; Office of the Dead ff.116-150; added miniature with angels, displaying host and motto f.150v.
This is one of several Books of Hours for the use of Troyes to have been illuminated by Colombe: it is unique among them in also having the variant seasons for the Office of the Virgin according to Roman use. I am grateful to Roger Wieck and James Marrow for alerting me to an Hours in the New York Public Library -- the only other one known to either with Offices of the Virgin for two uses (MA 45).
ILLUMINATION:
This is an altogether exceptional Book of Hours in both the quality and the quantity of its illumination: it combines full-page miniatures that are amongst the finest and most delicate works of Jean Colombe with extended cycles of marginal miniatures that fill the borders of every page.
Jean Colombe belonged to a prominent family of artists from Bourges, the chief town of the duchy of Berry. He was recorded there from 1463 until 1493 and, with the exception of a few short periods, he is believed to have lived and worked there continuously. Nonetheless, neither his reputation nor his activity were restricted to his native city: he was patronised and protected by Charlotte of Savoy, queen of Louis XI and a noted bibliophile. He illuminated manuscripts for the queen, her daughter Anne of Beaujeu and various members of the court. It was probably through Charlotte that Colombe was introduced into the service of her nephew, Charles I, Duke of Savoy, who retained him to complete two unfinished manuscripts in his library: the splendid Apocalypse by Jean Bapteur and Perronet Lamy (Escorial, E. Vit. 5) and -- probably the most celebrated of all Books of Hours -- the de Limbourg brothers' Très Riches Heures of the Duke of Berry. Colombe was appointed offical illuminator to the Duke of Savoy in 1486, but payment made to him in the previous year apparently relates to his work in the Très Riches Heures.
Colombe was commissioned to illustrate secular as well as religious texts and seems to have taken particular delight in providing scenes set within complex architecture or expansive landscapes and, wherever possible, containing crowds of onlookers. His narrative enthusiasm and invention were evidently keenly appreciated and, with the aid of his atelier -- including his son and grandson -- he decorated a large number of manuscripts including some with the most ambitious of illustrative ensembles.
He brought the same skills and interests to the Books of Hours he illuminated for his most important patrons, most spectacularly in the Hours of Louis de Laval (Paris, BnF, Lat. 920), which was completed, with the help of collaborators and assistants, in separate campaigns between 1470 and 1489: C. Schaefer, 'Nouvelles observations au sujet des Heures de Louis de Laval', Arts de l'Ouest, 1980, pp.33-68; Avril and Reynaud Les manuscrits, pp.328-332. Although the number of full-page miniatures in the Le Peley Hours does not compare with the dizzying profusion in the Laval Hours, both show the same commitment to use every available surface to provide illustration or decoration: they have an upright miniature in the outer border of every text-page that contains a subject related to the text it flanks -- for example, the Office of the Cross has scenes from the Passion -- while the bas-de-pages beneath carry a continuous sequence of narrative scenes from the Books of the Old Testament. These scenes in the Laval Hours were added during the later campaign of illumination, c.1485-89, whereas they are an integral part of the decorative scheme in the Le Peley manuscript. It is possible that the successful development of the format in the latter led to its adoption in the remodelled Laval Hours: Laval, Governor of Champagne, is usually thought to be the link between the notables of Troyes and Colombe.
The Old Testament scenes in the two manuscripts are often similar, but the cycles are not identical. It is not simply that the Laval cycle is longer, and extends into the Book of Daniel, for there are sequences in the Le Peley Hours that are omitted from the Laval Hours. One that is particularly charming tells the story of Adam and Eve as the first parents: it starts with Eve tending the infants Cain and Abel (f.3) includes scenes of their finding Abel's body (f.5v), carrying it home (f.6) and burying it (f.6v). The sequence ends with blind Lamech shooting Cain (f.7v) and the burial of Adam (f.8v).
The pageant of lively and varied border scenes -- ranging through battles, plagues, torments and miracles -- is punctuated by a series of full-page miniatures that demonstrate Colombe's style at its most serene and polished. There is no sign of the hasty schematic treatment that characterises the more routine products of his workshop. In the Le Peley Hours the compositions are involved and detailed and the finish precise and delicate.
While the involved architectural framing with fictive sculpture is very close to Colombe's framing of miniatures in the Très Riches Heures, his miniatures in the Le Peley Hours have none of the quotations from the de Limbourgs' work that are apparent in the manuscripts he illuminated after working on their masterpiece. It seems likely that the Le Peley Hours should be dated to the early years of the 1480s at a similar time to the charming, but simpler, manuscript in Paris (BnF N.a.lat.3181) with which it shares palette, handling and figure groups: Avril and Reynaud, Les Manuscrits, pp.334-5.
The full-page miniatures in the Le Peley Hours represent the pinnacle of Colombe's achievement at this scale. He combines ambitious settings and dramatic action with a meticulous handling rare in his work: the Betrayal of Christ, taking place at night under a starry sky, is lit by the torches of the myriad soldiers; the Office of the Dead opens with an arresting scene of a cemetery surrounded by ossuaries, with -- in the foreground and close to the picture-plane -- a near-skeletal Death climbing from a tomb towards the spectator.
The mood is more serene in the scenes from the life of the Virgin but they are comparably rich in treatment, and none more than the Annunciation. Exquisitely painted, it is a development of his presentation of the subject over a double-page opening in the Hours of Anne of Beaujeu (New York, PML, M.677). The poses of the figures and the setting opening onto a landscape seem to echo Jean Fouquet's miniature in the Robertet Hours (PML, M.834), another unfinished manuscript that Colombe had been called upon to complete. The Le Peley Annunciation combines all the finest and most appealing features of Colombe's art and it is fitting that it is there, in the border of Gabriel's mantle, that he included his signature quotation from Psalm 150, OMNIS SPIRITUS LAUDET DOMINUM.
The side miniatures in the Calendar contain an occupation (recto) and the zodiac sign (verso) appropriate to each month.
The subjects of the full-page miniatures are as follows:
f.14 St John on Patmos
ff.42v and 43 Annunciation
f.60 Visitation
f.69 Nativity
f.74 Annunciation to the shepherds
f.77v Adoration of the Magi
f.80v Presentation in the Temple
f.84 Dormition and Assumption of the Virgin
f.90 Coronation of the Virgin
f.94v Christ washing St Peter's feet
f.95 Betrayal
f.98v Resurrection
f.116 Death rising from a tomb in a cemetery
f.150 Two angels with chalice and host, motto IBI AMOR UBI FIDES
The scenes in the lower borders are a continuous cycle of narratives taken from the books of the Old Testament as follows:
ff.1-68v Genesis, scenes from the Creation of man (ch.1) to the Burial of Joseph (ch.50)
ff.69v-95v Exodus, scenes from Pharoah ordering the affliction of the Children of Israel (ch.1) to the adoration of the Golden Calf (ch.32)
ff.96-96v Leviticus (ch.10), the destruction of Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, and the Burial of Nadab and Abihu
ff.97-110v Numbers, from the woman suspected of adultery (ch. 5) to Moses with the daughters of Zelophehad (ch.36)
ff.111-113 Deuteronomy, from Moses kneeling before God begging mercy for the Children of Israel (ch.9) to the Burial of Moses (ch.34)
ff.113v-123 Joshua, from Joshua sending out spies (ch.2) to the slaying of the five kings (ch.10)
ff.123v-150 II Samuel (II Kings), from Amnon deflowering Tamar (ch.13) to Gad, David's prophet, addressing David (ch.24)
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