LOUISE DE SAVOIE PLAYING CHESS, copied from a miniature of c. 1496 by Robinet Testard, illumination on vellum. [France (Paris?), 19th or early 20th century]

LOUISE DE SAVOIE PLAYING CHESS, copied from a miniature of c. 1496 by Robinet Testard, illumination on vellum

[France (Paris?), 19th or early 20th century]

a miniature, c. 130 × 90mm, depicting a woman playing chess against a man whose back is to the viewer, on a table carved with heraldic arms, a second man looks over her shoulder and holds a grey mastiff on a chain, set in a wood-vaulted stone domestic interior with a view of a garden through an open window; in fine condition, in a giltwood frame.

PROVENANCE

1. Copied from a manuscript at the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris.
2. Sold at Christie’s, 8 December 1982, lot 124 (‘nineteenth century. A most decorative painting, in French 15th Century manner’); bought by:
3. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, no. 6362 (apparently numbered as part of the chess, not manuscripts, collection)

ILLUMINATION

The artist has not been identified, but his source has: the miniature is a close copy of part of the frontispiece, illuminated c.1496 by Robinet Testard (alias the Master of Charles of Angoulême; fl 1475–1523), of Evrart de Conty’s (d. 1405), Le livre des échecs amoureux moralisés (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 143, fol. 1r). The woman who is the focus of the image is identifiable as Louise de Savoie (d. 1531), mother of François I: the arms on the desk are those of Louise de Savoie’s father, as Count of Bresse before he acceded to the duchy in April 1496. The arms in the border of the manuscript in Paris are Orléans-Angoulême dimidiated with Bresse: the man in close physical proximity to Louise is therefore sure to be her husband, Charles d'Orléans (d. 1496), Count of Angoulême. The manuscript is described by F. Avril and N, Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993), no. 232; and extensive bibliography etc. can be found via archivesetmanuscrits.bnf.fr. Because the colours of the present miniature match those of the original, it seems that the artist had access to the original and was not copying from an early reproduction.