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St Catherine of Alexandria, historiated initial on a leaf from the Breviary of St Julian's Abbey [Tours, c.1460-70]
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Workshop of Jean Fouquet
St Catherine of Alexandria, historiated initial on a leaf from the Breviary of St Julian's Abbey [Tours, c.1460-70]
A charming example of the camaïeu d’or employed by Jean Fouquet, the celebrated French painter and illuminator who worked for Charles VII and Louis XI.
181 x 123mm. Historiated initial 'G' with St Catherine in camaïeu d’or, the text part of the Sanctorale in a Breviary, two columns of 30 lines, initials in burnished gold on grounds of blue and pink with white penwork decoration, three on recto and one on verso (very slight marginal soiling). Window mount. Provenance: (1) The parent manuscript was a Breviary that was made for the use of the abbey of St Julian in Tours, and broken-up by 1840: the Psalter bearing the ex-libris of Carl Göran Bonde (1757-1840), is now in Stockholm, Riksarkivet, MS 1 (see G. Böcker, Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, 1987, no 60); the Calendar and Temporale are at the University Library of Lund, Medeltidshandskrift 38 (donated in 1842 by Christian Gissel Berlin [1800-1863]). A leaf with an initial depicting Christ Resurrected is MS 130 in the Matsuda collection at Keio University. (2) Christie's, 2 June 1999, lot 27.
Painted with great finesse and delicacy, St Catherine is haloed and crowned, seated in a folding chair with fringed knops, like that of Fouquet's Virgin of Melun (Antwerp, Museum voor Schone Kunsten). The camaïeu d’or technique was used by Fouquet in the Hours of Etienne Chevalier (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 71) as for the opening of the memorial to St Martin where the initial is in gold on a similar deep pink above a fictive diptych executed in gold and brown. Two Books of Hours with small miniatures in this technique that are also closely linked to Fouquet’s style (though not necessarily the same hand as the present leaf), and may be the work of the young Jean Bourdichon who trained with Fouquet in the 1470s, are Comites Latentes MS 38 (see C. Lacaze, 'Book of Hours attributed to Jean Fouquet. France, circa 1465-75', Books and Manuscripts acquired from Alan G. Thomas and described by his customers, 1981, pp.24-25) and the Bigot Hours, now in a private collection (see Les Enluminures, cat. 4, no 3; cat. 6, no 8; and Books of Hours: a Medieval Best-Seller, 2013, no 17).
St Catherine of Alexandria, historiated initial on a leaf from the Breviary of St Julian's Abbey [Tours, c.1460-70]
A charming example of the camaïeu d’or employed by Jean Fouquet, the celebrated French painter and illuminator who worked for Charles VII and Louis XI.
181 x 123mm. Historiated initial 'G' with St Catherine in camaïeu d’or, the text part of the Sanctorale in a Breviary, two columns of 30 lines, initials in burnished gold on grounds of blue and pink with white penwork decoration, three on recto and one on verso (very slight marginal soiling). Window mount. Provenance: (1) The parent manuscript was a Breviary that was made for the use of the abbey of St Julian in Tours, and broken-up by 1840: the Psalter bearing the ex-libris of Carl Göran Bonde (1757-1840), is now in Stockholm, Riksarkivet, MS 1 (see G. Böcker, Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, 1987, no 60); the Calendar and Temporale are at the University Library of Lund, Medeltidshandskrift 38 (donated in 1842 by Christian Gissel Berlin [1800-1863]). A leaf with an initial depicting Christ Resurrected is MS 130 in the Matsuda collection at Keio University. (2) Christie's, 2 June 1999, lot 27.
Painted with great finesse and delicacy, St Catherine is haloed and crowned, seated in a folding chair with fringed knops, like that of Fouquet's Virgin of Melun (Antwerp, Museum voor Schone Kunsten). The camaïeu d’or technique was used by Fouquet in the Hours of Etienne Chevalier (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 71) as for the opening of the memorial to St Martin where the initial is in gold on a similar deep pink above a fictive diptych executed in gold and brown. Two Books of Hours with small miniatures in this technique that are also closely linked to Fouquet’s style (though not necessarily the same hand as the present leaf), and may be the work of the young Jean Bourdichon who trained with Fouquet in the 1470s, are Comites Latentes MS 38 (see C. Lacaze, 'Book of Hours attributed to Jean Fouquet. France, circa 1465-75', Books and Manuscripts acquired from Alan G. Thomas and described by his customers, 1981, pp.24-25) and the Bigot Hours, now in a private collection (see Les Enluminures, cat. 4, no 3; cat. 6, no 8; and Books of Hours: a Medieval Best-Seller, 2013, no 17).
Special notice
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