The Death of the Roman General Postumius at the Hands of the Boii, miniature from a manuscript of the Romuléon (Les Faits des Romains), in French translation by Jean Miélot [eastern France (Langres), c.1480-85]

cutting, 131x97mm, vellum, large column-wide miniature with a rubric 'Le Xme. Chap[itr]e', 21 lines (describing the death of Postumius and the elated return of the Boii with spoils of the victory; the battle took place in 216 BC), trimmed to edges, small tear to left margin, small pigment losses, slight rubbing to blue saddle cloth of horse to the right, overall in very good condition

This is one of the finest miniatures from a fragmentary Romuléon manuscript in Niort (Médiathèque, Rés. G2F, olim ms.25), painted by the MASTER OF MORGAN 26 (on whom see J. Lauga, Les manuscrits liturgiques dans le diocèse de Langres, PhD Université Paris IV-Sorbonne, 2007). The manuscript had been stripped of all its miniatures before entering the library in 1884 (see S. McKendrick in Kunst und Kulturtransfer zur Zeit Karls des Kühnen, 2012, pp.59-84). The volume measures an impressive 475x350mm and is the only known copy of the Romuléon made in France (only six complete manuscripts of Miélot’s translation survive, all of them luxury volumes made in the Southern Netherlands). The Niort volume was probably copied from a manuscript with miniatures by the Burgundian court painter Loyset Liedet (Florence, Bibl. Laurenziana, MS Med. Pal.156), which entered the Lorraine ducal library after the defeat and death of Charles the Bold at the Battle of Nancy in 1477. Other cuttings of the Niort manuscript are known: two in the Musée Cluny, Paris, and six in the Musée de l’émail, Limoges. Robert Forrer (1866-1947) owned another (Unedierte Federzeichnungen Miniaturen, [1902], no.32). The present cutting was one of 14 miniatures sold at Christie’s, 21 June 1989, lots 6-11 (as lot 7, to the present owner; only lots 6 and 7 were reproduced in colour and sold individually); some reappearing in Maggs, European Bulletin 17, no.10; Les Enluminures, Cat. 5, 1996, no. 18; and sale in our rooms, 2 December 1997, lot 74. Two others appeared in Heinlein, Medieval and Renaissance Painting, London 1989, no.6, and Lubin, European Illuminated Manuscripts, New York, 1985, no.29 (one re-offered in Les Enluminures, Cat.3, 1994, no.26).