.jpg?w=1)
Details
BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rouen, in Latin and French, ILLUMINATED MANUSCRIPT ON VELLUM
[Rouen, c. 1500]
195 x 130 mm. iii + 93 + iii leaves, COMPLETE: 16, 210, 3-68, 76, 8-118, 127(of 8, viii cancelled blank), modern pencil foliation, 22 lines in brown ink in a lettre bâtarde between two verticals and 23 horizontals ruled in dark pink, justification: 105 x 60mm, versal initials touched yellow, rubrics in pink, one-line initials in liquid gold on grounds of blue, red or brown, line-endings of the same colours, two- to four-line initials of light blue acanthus over red on liquid gold grounds with flower infills, EVERY PAGE WITH PANEL BORDER of sprays of scrolling grey or red and blue acanthus, naturalistic flowers and fruit on liquid gold grounds, TWENTY-FOUR PAIRS OF CALENDAR MINIATURES with similar three-quarter borders, FOURTEEN FULL-PAGE MINIATURES with framed with liquid gold borders incorporating single-stemmed flowers and fruit, birds and/or monsters, each with accompanying coat of arms below frames or on facing leaf (very minor pigment losses from some borders, and a smudge to Bathsheba's right breast). 19th-century light brown morocco by Joly, with panelled covers with red and green morocco onlays and ornate gold-tooling, gilt-tooled red morocco doublures, red watered silk guards, for Robert Hoe (Joly R.D. stamped on end guard), earlier fore-edge painting of flowers in gilt and colours (two fore-edges faded). Maroon and crimson morocco slipcase.
PROVENANCE:
1. The feasts in the Calendar, liturgical uses of the Offices of the Virgin and of the Dead, together with the style of illumination, places the manuscript in Rouen. Two coats of arms accompany the full-page miniatures. They belong to the families of Manneville and Eudes de Catteville. There were two marriages between these families and either might have been the owner: Etienne de Manneville (1460-1508) of Dieppe took Catherine Eudes de Catteville as his second wife and his son Nicolas I de Manneville married Anne Eudes de Catteville. The woman shown kneeling before the Virgin of Humility was no doubt intended to represent the original owner. The unusual inclusion of the Christ Child carrying the cross (f.86v) may indicate that the manuscript was made for the widow Catherine Eudes de Catteville to commemorate the death of her husband in 1508.
2. Robert Hoe (1839-1909): his sale Anderson Auction Company, New York, 8 January 1912, catalogue IV, lot 2472 (his morocco bookplate pasted on verso of first flyleaf)
3. Beverly Chew (1850-1924): his sale Anderson, New York, 8 December 1924, lot 262 (his morocco bookplate pasted on verso of first flyleaf) -- and subsequently at Anderson, 15 November 1926, lot 347.
4. Frederick S. Peck (1868-?1945) (armorial bookplate pasted onto 2nd flyleaf) -- sold Parke-Bernet, 21 April 1947, lot 385.
CONTENT:
Calendar in French, written in red, blue, and gold ff.1-6v; Gospel Extracts ff.7-11; Obsecro te ff.11-13; O intemerata ff.13-15v; arms f.16v; Office of the Virgin, use of Rouen ff.17v-48v: matins f.17v, lauds f.24v, prime f.32v, terce f.36, sext f.38v, none f.41, vespers f.43v, compline f.46; Hours of the Cross ff.49v-51; Hours of the Holy Spirit ff.52-53v; arms f.54v; Penitential Psalms and Litany ff.55v-66v; Office of the Dead, use of Rouen ff.67v-86; Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, Doulce dame ff.87-90v; Seven Requests to our Lord Doulx dieu ff.91-93.
ILLUMINATION:
These miniatures are amongst the most accomplished and polished work of the Rouen illuminator Robert Boyvin. From a family with an established position within the Rouen book trade since early in the fifteenth century, Boyvin's career can be traced from 1487 until 1536. His success and standing is shown by the fact he was one of the artists that Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen turned to when he sought to expand his library. It is on the basis of the manuscript of Seneca's Epîtres (Paris, BnF, lat.8551) made for the Cardinal in 1503 that Boyvin's style can be identified: F. Lehoux, 'Sur un manuscrit de l'école de Rouen décoré par Jean Serpin et Robert Boyvin pour le cardinal Georges d'Amboise', Mélanges dédiés à la mémoire de Fèlix Grat, 1949, II, pp.328-328. Subsequently more than fifty manuscripts, mostly Books of Hours, have been identified as from his hand: I. Delauney, 'Le manuscrit enluminé à Rouen au temps du cardinal Georges d'Amboise: l'oeuvre de Robert Boyvin et de Jean Serpin', Annales de Normandie, 3 (1995), pp.211-244.
Boyvin's is a distinctive style, his characters almost always having rather long and triangular noses, the men with narrow chins and the women porcelain complexions, drapery has angular contours and is painted with a restricted palette dominated by a single shade of blue, pink and grey. His landscape backgrounds are dotted with little shrubs and bushes. In his finest work, such as the present Hours, he shows a particular skill and aesthetic sense in the use of gold; not only the very fine cross-hatching used to highlight and model drapery but also, whenever appropriate, to have whole garments of gold patterned and shaded with a translucent red glaze.
One other feature of this manuscript which separates it from more routine works is the choice of Old Testament subjects to illustrate the Offices and Short Hours rather than the more usual scenes from the Infancy of Christ. As is the case with Boyvin's figure style, this reveals the influence upon him of the Master of the Échevinage of Rouen (otherwise called the Master of the Geneva Latini), the illuminator who dominated manuscript illumination in Rouen in the previous generation. A Book of Hours in the Walters Art Gallery has miniatures in that Master's style that also treat Old Testament subjects, and five of them correspond in both iconography and composition to Boyvin's miniatures in the present Hours: L.M.C. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery: France, 1420-1540, 1992, II, no 165.
The fine borders that enhance every page of this manuscript appear to be the work of Jean Serpin, a specialist in the secondary decoration of manuscripts. He regularly collaborated with Boyvin on manuscripts for Cardinal Georges d'Amboise.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f.7 St John on Patmos
f.17 God the Father appearing to Moses in the burning bush (2 Moses, 3:1-6)
f.24 Moses consecrating Aaron and his sons (2 Moses, 40:1-27)
f.32 Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl (Legenda Aurea)
f.35v Jacob's Ladder (1 Moses, 28:12)
f.38 Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings, 10:1)
f.40v Hannah presenting Samuel to the Lord before Eli (1 Samuel, 2:19-21)
f.43 Jacob receives Isaac's Blessing (1 Moses, 27:22-23)
f.45v Ahasuerus and Esther (Esther 2:16)
f.49 Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac (1 Moses, 22:9-13)
f.51v Elias founder of the Carmelite Order making a burnt offering on Mount Carmel (I Kings, 18:20-40)
f.55 David and Bathseba (2 Samuel, 11:2-3)
f.67 Salomon's judgement (1 Kings, 3:16-28)
f.86v Virgin with Christ Child carrying the cross, with the kneeling praying female owner
[Rouen, c. 1500]
195 x 130 mm. iii + 93 + iii leaves, COMPLETE: 1
PROVENANCE:
1. The feasts in the Calendar, liturgical uses of the Offices of the Virgin and of the Dead, together with the style of illumination, places the manuscript in Rouen. Two coats of arms accompany the full-page miniatures. They belong to the families of Manneville and Eudes de Catteville. There were two marriages between these families and either might have been the owner: Etienne de Manneville (1460-1508) of Dieppe took Catherine Eudes de Catteville as his second wife and his son Nicolas I de Manneville married Anne Eudes de Catteville. The woman shown kneeling before the Virgin of Humility was no doubt intended to represent the original owner. The unusual inclusion of the Christ Child carrying the cross (f.86v) may indicate that the manuscript was made for the widow Catherine Eudes de Catteville to commemorate the death of her husband in 1508.
2. Robert Hoe (1839-1909): his sale Anderson Auction Company, New York, 8 January 1912, catalogue IV, lot 2472 (his morocco bookplate pasted on verso of first flyleaf)
3. Beverly Chew (1850-1924): his sale Anderson, New York, 8 December 1924, lot 262 (his morocco bookplate pasted on verso of first flyleaf) -- and subsequently at Anderson, 15 November 1926, lot 347.
4. Frederick S. Peck (1868-?1945) (armorial bookplate pasted onto 2nd flyleaf) -- sold Parke-Bernet, 21 April 1947, lot 385.
CONTENT:
Calendar in French, written in red, blue, and gold ff.1-6v; Gospel Extracts ff.7-11; Obsecro te ff.11-13; O intemerata ff.13-15v; arms f.16v; Office of the Virgin, use of Rouen ff.17v-48v: matins f.17v, lauds f.24v, prime f.32v, terce f.36, sext f.38v, none f.41, vespers f.43v, compline f.46; Hours of the Cross ff.49v-51; Hours of the Holy Spirit ff.52-53v; arms f.54v; Penitential Psalms and Litany ff.55v-66v; Office of the Dead, use of Rouen ff.67v-86; Fifteen Joys of the Virgin, Doulce dame ff.87-90v; Seven Requests to our Lord Doulx dieu ff.91-93.
ILLUMINATION:
These miniatures are amongst the most accomplished and polished work of the Rouen illuminator Robert Boyvin. From a family with an established position within the Rouen book trade since early in the fifteenth century, Boyvin's career can be traced from 1487 until 1536. His success and standing is shown by the fact he was one of the artists that Georges d'Amboise, Cardinal Archbishop of Rouen turned to when he sought to expand his library. It is on the basis of the manuscript of Seneca's Epîtres (Paris, BnF, lat.8551) made for the Cardinal in 1503 that Boyvin's style can be identified: F. Lehoux, 'Sur un manuscrit de l'école de Rouen décoré par Jean Serpin et Robert Boyvin pour le cardinal Georges d'Amboise', Mélanges dédiés à la mémoire de Fèlix Grat, 1949, II, pp.328-328. Subsequently more than fifty manuscripts, mostly Books of Hours, have been identified as from his hand: I. Delauney, 'Le manuscrit enluminé à Rouen au temps du cardinal Georges d'Amboise: l'oeuvre de Robert Boyvin et de Jean Serpin', Annales de Normandie, 3 (1995), pp.211-244.
Boyvin's is a distinctive style, his characters almost always having rather long and triangular noses, the men with narrow chins and the women porcelain complexions, drapery has angular contours and is painted with a restricted palette dominated by a single shade of blue, pink and grey. His landscape backgrounds are dotted with little shrubs and bushes. In his finest work, such as the present Hours, he shows a particular skill and aesthetic sense in the use of gold; not only the very fine cross-hatching used to highlight and model drapery but also, whenever appropriate, to have whole garments of gold patterned and shaded with a translucent red glaze.
One other feature of this manuscript which separates it from more routine works is the choice of Old Testament subjects to illustrate the Offices and Short Hours rather than the more usual scenes from the Infancy of Christ. As is the case with Boyvin's figure style, this reveals the influence upon him of the Master of the Échevinage of Rouen (otherwise called the Master of the Geneva Latini), the illuminator who dominated manuscript illumination in Rouen in the previous generation. A Book of Hours in the Walters Art Gallery has miniatures in that Master's style that also treat Old Testament subjects, and five of them correspond in both iconography and composition to Boyvin's miniatures in the present Hours: L.M.C. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery: France, 1420-1540, 1992, II, no 165.
The fine borders that enhance every page of this manuscript appear to be the work of Jean Serpin, a specialist in the secondary decoration of manuscripts. He regularly collaborated with Boyvin on manuscripts for Cardinal Georges d'Amboise.
The subjects of the miniatures are as follows:
f.7 St John on Patmos
f.17 God the Father appearing to Moses in the burning bush (2 Moses, 3:1-6)
f.24 Moses consecrating Aaron and his sons (2 Moses, 40:1-27)
f.32 Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl (Legenda Aurea)
f.35v Jacob's Ladder (1 Moses, 28:12)
f.38 Solomon and the Queen of Sheba (1 Kings, 10:1)
f.40v Hannah presenting Samuel to the Lord before Eli (1 Samuel, 2:19-21)
f.43 Jacob receives Isaac's Blessing (1 Moses, 27:22-23)
f.45v Ahasuerus and Esther (Esther 2:16)
f.49 Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac (1 Moses, 22:9-13)
f.51v Elias founder of the Carmelite Order making a burnt offering on Mount Carmel (I Kings, 18:20-40)
f.55 David and Bathseba (2 Samuel, 11:2-3)
f.67 Salomon's judgement (1 Kings, 3:16-28)
f.86v Virgin with Christ Child carrying the cross, with the kneeling praying female owner