Cain Killing Abel, miniature stuck to a cutting from a Bible historiale, in French [France (Paris), early 14th century]

cutting, c.120x100mm, vellum, to which is stuck a miniature c.80x75mm by the MONTBASTONS, the reverse with 21 lines of text (c.100x75mm) and the purple ink stamp ‘Coll.Forrer’ (Lugt, no.941a), framed

Provenance: (1) From the famous collection of leaves and cuttings of ROBERT FORRER (1866–1947) of Strasbourg; a very similar cutting from the Forrer collection with the miniature at the beginning of Ecclesiastes from a Bible historiale, doubtless the same parent volume, is Philadelphia, Free Library, Lewis E.M. 8:10. (2) Priv. coll., UK.

Text: The line of text immediately under the miniature reads ‘Ele ouvri sa bouche a sapience. Et la loy de debonnaire si est en sa parole’, i.e. Proverbs 31:26 from a copy of the Bible historiale by Guyart des Moulins.

Illumination: The present miniature has been published as ‘firmly identifiable as the work of the early fourteenth-century husband and wife illuminator-team Richard and Jean [sic] de Montbaston’ (on the de Montbastons, see R.H. and M.A. Rouse, ‘A Rose by any other Name: Richard and Jeanne de Montbaston as Illuminators of Vernacular Texts’, in Manuscripts and their Makers, 2000, I, pp.234–260; II, pp.89-90, 126).