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Three men in discussion at a table, a miniature on a cutting from a translation of an unidentified Classical text, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Central France, ?Tours, c.1470]
Details
Master of the Munich Bocaccio
Three men in discussion at a table, a miniature on a cutting from a translation of an unidentified Classical text, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Central France, ?Tours, c.1470]
A fine and very unusual miniature of a secular scene by the Master of the Munich Boccaccio, with in the background perhaps one of the earliest representations of the jeu de paume, the medieval forerunner of Real Tennis.
c.150 x 215mm, a vellum cutting laid down on a wood panel, with a miniature depicting one old man and two younger men seated on benches at a table on which lies an open book, set within an open-sided interior with sculpted statues atop columns, a street scene is visible through the arcade at the back, with four men, apparently playing a ball game, in the distance a cityscape, the miniature flanked by the remains of a full border, including acanthus and a full-length jester wearing an ass’s ears headdress and holding a marotte, the reverse of the panel with the painted number ‘9o 474’(?) (water-staining to the borders and some flaking of pigments in the miniature, not significantly affecting the figures).
Provenance:
This miniature first appeared on the market in 2013 with seven other cuttings from the same manuscript, in matching frames and with matching numbers 468–477 on the back, which suggests that they came from a 19th-century picture-gallery of significant size. Some of the sister-cuttings have visible text on the reverse in fine lettre bâtarde script in two columns, of which up to 29 lines were preserved, from which the texts were identified as Laurent de Premierfait’s translations into French of works by Cicero, including De senectute and De amicitia. The present cutting is stuck down such that only a very narrow sliver of script in two columns is visible at the upper edge, but on the back a few words, perhaps including (according to the 2013 description) ‘pirthus fitz achil[les]’ can be discerned. This would refer to Pyrrus, later named Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, but as this phrase does not appear in either of the two Premierfait translations mentioned above, the parent volume must have contained other texts. It may have been something like Paris, BnF, MS Fr. 126, which includes texts by Alain Chartier, Gilles de Rome’s Le Régime des princes, and the Premierfait translations of Cicero; or like the compendium known as Le Mignon, which included Henri Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live, and other texts by various authors, including Premierefait’s translation of De senectute into French as De la viellesse (see Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520, 1993, no 15).
There are two miniatures from the same manuscript in the Comites Latentes collection, formerly in Geneva and now in Basel (CL 233A, B). Their text is from Premierefait’s De la viellesse. One of them includes in its border the upper part of a cropped pair of initials joined by a love-knot, perhaps ‘L’ and ‘I’, presumably the initials of the original patrons. These two miniatures are in turn closely related to three more from a copy of Martin le Franc’s L’Estrif de fortune et de virtu which were sold in 2013 as consecutive lots with the group from which the present miniature comes; these three were also described as being in elaborately 19th-century carved giltwood frames, and one had the number ‘480’ on the back, so it seems likely that they came from the same collection, and perhaps the same manuscript.
Illumination:
The miniatures have been attributed to the Master of the Munich Bocaccio, a close follower of Jean Fouquet, who painted at least two other volumes with comparable contents: first, he is named after a copy of Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium translated into French by Laurent de Premierfait as Le livre de Jehan Bocace des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, written in 1458 and now in Munich (BSB Cod. Gall. 6); second, a volume which contains Premierfait’s two translations of Cicero among other works including the Livre intitulé de Seneque des quatre vertus principales translated into French by Jean Courtecuisse (London, BL, Harley MS 4329). On the illuminator see ‘Un grand disciple de Fouquet, le Maître du Boccace de Munich’, Jean Fouquet: peintre et enlumineur du XVe siècle, ed. by François Avril (Bibliothèque nationale de France: Hazan, 2003), nos. 31–45 pp. 270–374.
The background of the scene perhaps represents one of the earliest depictions of the jeu de paume, the medieval forerunner of Real Tennis (known as Court Tennis in the USA) and the modern game of lawn tennis, which is a derivative invented in the 19th century. The original game was played with bare hands (hence the name) but racquets were introduced by the 16th century. In the miniature we see four men facing one another (as if playing doubles), one of whom holds a small ball in his left hand and has his right arm withdrawn, as if about to serve; a prominent feature behind them, highlighted in gold, but apparently serving no practical purpose, is a sloping roof somewhat above head-height, just like the ‘penthouse’ of jeu de paume and Real Tennis courts.
Three men in discussion at a table, a miniature on a cutting from a translation of an unidentified Classical text, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Central France, ?Tours, c.1470]
A fine and very unusual miniature of a secular scene by the Master of the Munich Boccaccio, with in the background perhaps one of the earliest representations of the jeu de paume, the medieval forerunner of Real Tennis.
c.150 x 215mm, a vellum cutting laid down on a wood panel, with a miniature depicting one old man and two younger men seated on benches at a table on which lies an open book, set within an open-sided interior with sculpted statues atop columns, a street scene is visible through the arcade at the back, with four men, apparently playing a ball game, in the distance a cityscape, the miniature flanked by the remains of a full border, including acanthus and a full-length jester wearing an ass’s ears headdress and holding a marotte, the reverse of the panel with the painted number ‘9o 474’(?) (water-staining to the borders and some flaking of pigments in the miniature, not significantly affecting the figures).
Provenance:
This miniature first appeared on the market in 2013 with seven other cuttings from the same manuscript, in matching frames and with matching numbers 468–477 on the back, which suggests that they came from a 19th-century picture-gallery of significant size. Some of the sister-cuttings have visible text on the reverse in fine lettre bâtarde script in two columns, of which up to 29 lines were preserved, from which the texts were identified as Laurent de Premierfait’s translations into French of works by Cicero, including De senectute and De amicitia. The present cutting is stuck down such that only a very narrow sliver of script in two columns is visible at the upper edge, but on the back a few words, perhaps including (according to the 2013 description) ‘pirthus fitz achil[les]’ can be discerned. This would refer to Pyrrus, later named Neoptolemus, son of Achilles, but as this phrase does not appear in either of the two Premierfait translations mentioned above, the parent volume must have contained other texts. It may have been something like Paris, BnF, MS Fr. 126, which includes texts by Alain Chartier, Gilles de Rome’s Le Régime des princes, and the Premierfait translations of Cicero; or like the compendium known as Le Mignon, which included Henri Romain, Abrégé de Tite-Live, and other texts by various authors, including Premierefait’s translation of De senectute into French as De la viellesse (see Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520, 1993, no 15).
There are two miniatures from the same manuscript in the Comites Latentes collection, formerly in Geneva and now in Basel (CL 233A, B). Their text is from Premierefait’s De la viellesse. One of them includes in its border the upper part of a cropped pair of initials joined by a love-knot, perhaps ‘L’ and ‘I’, presumably the initials of the original patrons. These two miniatures are in turn closely related to three more from a copy of Martin le Franc’s L’Estrif de fortune et de virtu which were sold in 2013 as consecutive lots with the group from which the present miniature comes; these three were also described as being in elaborately 19th-century carved giltwood frames, and one had the number ‘480’ on the back, so it seems likely that they came from the same collection, and perhaps the same manuscript.
Illumination:
The miniatures have been attributed to the Master of the Munich Bocaccio, a close follower of Jean Fouquet, who painted at least two other volumes with comparable contents: first, he is named after a copy of Boccaccio’s De casibus virorum illustrium translated into French by Laurent de Premierfait as Le livre de Jehan Bocace des cas des nobles hommes et femmes, written in 1458 and now in Munich (BSB Cod. Gall. 6); second, a volume which contains Premierfait’s two translations of Cicero among other works including the Livre intitulé de Seneque des quatre vertus principales translated into French by Jean Courtecuisse (London, BL, Harley MS 4329). On the illuminator see ‘Un grand disciple de Fouquet, le Maître du Boccace de Munich’, Jean Fouquet: peintre et enlumineur du XVe siècle, ed. by François Avril (Bibliothèque nationale de France: Hazan, 2003), nos. 31–45 pp. 270–374.
The background of the scene perhaps represents one of the earliest depictions of the jeu de paume, the medieval forerunner of Real Tennis (known as Court Tennis in the USA) and the modern game of lawn tennis, which is a derivative invented in the 19th century. The original game was played with bare hands (hence the name) but racquets were introduced by the 16th century. In the miniature we see four men facing one another (as if playing doubles), one of whom holds a small ball in his left hand and has his right arm withdrawn, as if about to serve; a prominent feature behind them, highlighted in gold, but apparently serving no practical purpose, is a sloping roof somewhat above head-height, just like the ‘penthouse’ of jeu de paume and Real Tennis courts.
Brought to you by
Eugenio Donadoni
Senior Specialist, Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts