Lot 17

The Devil Enchained and the Mouth of Hell, miniatures on 2 cuttings from an illuminated manuscript on vellum of Guillaume de Deguilleville, Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine, in French verse

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Description

2 separate cuttings, (a) miniature 50mm. by 65mm., showing the pilgrim naked but for a loin cloth and travelling staff meeting an angel who tells him of the mouth of Hell behind him, resembling the head of huge ape in profile enclosing 7 naked souls in torment, set in a landscape with a scarlet sky, 3-sided border around the miniature with coloured flowers and acanthus leaves and burnished gold leaves on black sprays, on a cutting 117mm. by 114mm., heading in a gothic hand above the miniature “Enfans mors Nez”, verso with part of 2 columns of text in a cursive bookhand and a heading “Le corps” and opening of a paragraph “Certes di il tres folement …”; and (b) miniature 60mm. by 66mm., showing a woman in red with a black headdress tightening chains around a three-faced crowned devil seated on a red chair in a landscape against a dark blue sky, border surrounding the miniature with coloured flowers and acanthus leaves and burnished gold leaves on black sprays enclosing a mermaid looking into a mirror, on a cutting 131mm. by 158mm., part of text in 2 columns beginning below the miniature “Mais tu dist il maul venue / Soies ore vielle chenue …”, both loosely enclosed in mounts

Catalogue Note

These are illustrations from a luxurious manuscript of one of the great literary romances of the late Middle Ages. The Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine was composed in 1330 by Deguilleville, a Cistercian monk, in imitation of the Roman de la Rose. The author travels through life, beset by allegorical impediments. The text has been compared both with Dante’s Divine Comedy and especially with Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress. Eighty-six manuscripts are recorded, many of them illuminated (cf. esp. M. Camille, ‘The Illustrated Manuscripts of Guillaume Deguilleville’s Pèlerinages, 1330-1426’, PhD thesis, Cambridge, 1985). One has been published in facsimile, Die Pilgerfahrt zum Himmlischen Jerusalem, ed. R. Bergmann, 1983, as has Henry VII’s copy of Vérard’s printed edition of 1499, Le Pèlerinage de la Vie Humaine, Reproduced from the Printed Copy in the Library of the Earl of Ellesmere, ed. A.W. Pollard, 1912. The text was first published in English by William Caxton, as The Pilgrimage of the Life of Man.

A miniature from the present manuscript was acquired by the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge in memory of the late Michael Camille (MS. 1-2003). Subsequently the Museum has been given 35 more cuttings from the same volume and has received 4 more on long-term deposit. The present pieces bring the total to 42, perhaps not far off the original total. The miniatures are attributable to the illuminator Henri d’Orquevaulx, who signed a Livy in Metz in 1440.