The Montboissier Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

provenance

(1) Illuminated for Jean de Montboissier, seigneur d’Aubusson, with the frontispiece showing the owner kneeling in prayer under the commendation of his two patron saints, John the Evangelist and John the Baptist.  The arms of Montboissier are hanging from the roof, or, a semé of crosslets sable, over all a lion rampant of the same.   On 4 July 1450 Jean de Montboissier married Isabeau de Beaufort-Canillac, and their descendants were comtes de Canillac and marquis de Pont-Château.  In 1486 he acquired the château d’Alteribe, near Courpière in the Auvergne, central France, which still survives, largely unaltered since the fifteenth century.

(2) Jean Du Bouchet (1599-1684), author and genealogist, with his arms on the binding (Olivier, XXVII, 1929, pl.1706, fer 2) and on the recto of the frontispiece.

(3) Robert Hoe (1839-1909); exhibited, Catalogue of an Exhibition of Illuminated and Painted Manuscripts together with a few early printed books with illuminations, Grolier Club, New York, April 1892, no.86; Hoe sale, IV, Anderson, 11 November 1912, lot 2336, $2600.

(4) Fritz Kreisler (1875-1962), violinist and composer, bought from Quaritch; his sale, Parke-Bernet, New York, 28 January 1949, lot 107.

(5) Louis Rabinowitz (1887-1957), probably bought from Quaritch; described as the property of his widow in C.U. Faye and W.H. Bond, Supplement to the Census of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the United States and Canada, 1962, p.413, no.4; in 1960, however, the collection was sold to Stonehill, and the present book on to Messrs Martin Breslauer, their Some Manuscripts, Autographs and Printed Books Recently Acquired, cat. 93 (1961), no.1, including colour plate on front cover.

(6) Belgian private collection; sold in our rooms, 5 December 1989, lot 108, to Quaritch, for the present owner.

text

A Calendar (fol.2r); the Gospel Sequences (fol.14r) and the Passion Sequence (fol.20r); the Obsecro te (fol.34r), for male use, and the O intemerata; the Hours of the Virgin [Use of Rome], with Matins (fol.42r), Lauds (fol.54r), Prime (fol.68r), Terce (fol.73r), Sext (fol.77r), None (fol.81r), Vespers (fol.85r) and Compline (fol.93r), with the Advent office; the Penitential Psalms (fol.118r) and Litany; the Hours of the Cross (fol.143v) and of the Holy Ghost (fol.148r); and the Office of the Dead [Use of Rome] (fol.152r).

illumination

Illuminated by Maître François, the most celebrated manuscript painter in Paris in the second half of the fifteenth century and the favourite illuminator of the court and Parisian nobility. His name has been known since the discovery in the late nineteenth century of a letter giving instructions for the illustration in 1473 of the manuscript which is now Paris, BnF ms.fr. 18-19, by the ‘surpassing painter Franciscus… the consummate artist'.  It is commonly assumed that this is the same man as the ‘Maître François, l’enlumineur' documented in the same year in the accounts of Charles IV d’Anjou, with whom he was still working in 1481. It is also often suggested that he may have been François Fouquet, the son of Jean Fouquet of Tours.  Whether any of these three men are the same is no longer as clear as it once seemed.  However, the present illuminator, Franciscus, ‘François’ in French, with surname unknown, painter of BnF ms.fr. 18-19, was certainly working in Paris between about 1460 and about 1480, leading the principal workshop of the capital.  His style came to dominate a whole generation of manuscript painting in the capital.  His first dated Book of Hours, now Lyon ms.5154, was completed in Paris on 20 January 1465.  Although many manuscripts are now loosely associated with the ‘Maître François’ style, the core of his best work, including the present manuscript, is relatively small.  They include the Hours of René II of Lorraine, lot 57 in the Yates Thompson sale in these rooms, 23 March 1920, now Lisbon, Calouse Gulbenkian Museum, MS. L.A.147, and the beautiful Wharncliffe Hours in Melbourne, reproduced in partial facsimile by Margaret Manion in 1981. In her introduction, Professor Manion defines the artist’s style: “Details of buildings, gestures and movements reflect his concern for dramatic narrative… The gilded traceried hanging arches supported by coloured marble columns, which often frame interior scenes, the green tiled floors patterned with brown and the dark brown and brownish pink walls hatched in black are part of a conventional repertoire which is used repeatedly.  Despite such conventionalism, the figures, solid in their modelling and stance, occupy a clearly defined space.  Especially in interior scenes the solidity of the figures themselves and their firm placement on the ground help to contribute to this sense of clarity.  Colour is used for similar effect.  In landscapes, the middle distance is rendered in a gold-green, and distant views of turreted and spired towns are painted in a more delicate greyish-blue.  Indeed, Maître François’s use of colour is as easily recognisable as his compositional schema.  Strident blues and greens are muted by browns and softer shades of grey, mauve, violet and white.  Characteristic of his palette is a bright orange-red, which is normally reserved for accessories, the splash of colour being often skilfully combined with the graceful curve of an elegant boot or a seemingly casually placed hat” (M.M. Manion, The Wharncliffe Hours, 1981, pp.9-10; cf also Manion, The Wharncliffe Hours, A Study of a Fifteenth-Century Prayerbook, 1972, and Manion, The Felton Illuminated Manuscripts in the National Gallery of Victoria, 2005).  Cf. also, C. Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, 1300-1500, II, 1990, pp.192-213; N. Reynaud in Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520, 1993, pp.45-52; and T. Kren, ‘Seven Illuminated Books of Hours written by the Parisian Scribe Jean Dubreuil, c.1475-1485’, Reading Texts and Images, ed. B.J. Muir,  Manion festschrift, 2002, pp.157-87; all with many further references.

The miniature of the Nativity in the present manuscript follows almost exactly the pattern sheet of the Wharncliffe Hours, with the position of the Virgin and Child and the animals being mirrored precisely against a near identical stable with the same glimpse of landscape to the right.  A similar close parallel occurs in the miniature of the Magi with the same kneeling king in profile offering a jewel box.  The Flight into Egypt has the same depth-conveying trick of the donkey’s nose being concealed behind Joseph.  The finest miniature here is the splendid frontispiece of the owner with his patron saints.  Obvious prototypes are Fouquet’s portraits of Etienne Chevalier and Simon de Varie in their Books of Hours (Musée Condé and J. Paul Getty Museum).  The skilful sense of depth is created by the outer window-like frame, by the receding architectural perspective and by the loggia clearly separating off the distance.  If Maître François were, in fact, the son of Fouquet, one might guess at his sources.

The subjects of the miniatures are:

1. Folio 1v, Jean de Montboissier in prayer, 115mm. by 85mm., the patron wearing a sober, black fur-lined robe, attended by Saints John the Baptist and John the Evangelist, kneeling at a prie-dieu in an elegant renaissance loggia with views through the arcade to a distant walled city with a castellated tower and a gothic church; architectural surround, including the arms of Montboissier.

2. Folio 42r, The Annunciation, 74mm. by 43mm., the Virgin kneeling at a prie-dieu under a canopy in a green-tiled interior with a vase of lilies, Gabriel with his message on a scroll, the Holy Spirit descending from God through a window; full border including jousting figures of a man with bagpipes and an ape mounted on a cockerel and a red horse.

3. Folio 54r, The Visitation, historiated initial, 6 lines, 29mm. by 35mm., the Virgin and Saint Elizabeth embracing in a landscape outside a city; full border including a grotesque, a snail, a bird and an ape playing the bagpipes.

4. Folio 68r, The Nativity, 73mm. by 43mm., the Virgin and Joseph adoring the Child who lies on a pallet outside a thatched stable illuminated by the star of Bethlehem, set in a landscape with a gothic city beside a river; full border including two birds.

5. Folio 73r, The Annunciation to the Shepherds, 69mm. by 43mm., dressed as rustics with a dog, an angel appearing above, set in a pastoral landscape; full border including two grotesque birds.

6. Folio  77r, The Adoration of the Magi, 68mm. by 44mm., set outside the stable with the eldest king offering a box of gold as his companions stand waiting; full border including a cockerel and a grotesque with the head of a jester.

7. Folio 81r, The Presentation in the Temple, 68mm. by 44mm., set in a gothic interior, the priest below a canopy holding the Child over the altar, the Virgin kneeling, a maid with a basket of doves and a candle; full border including a green parrot and two grotesques.

8. Folio 85r, The Flight into Egypt, 74mm. by 43mm., Joseph leading the donkey through a hilly landscape, with the pagan statue falling from its pillar as the Holy Family passes; full border including grotesques with features of an elephant, a snail and a dragon.

9. Folio 93r, The Coronation of the Virgin, 73mm. by 43mm., the Virgin kneeling at the throne of God below a circular canopy, an angel with a crown leaning across a gothic fence; full border including long-necked grotesques and a dragonfly.

10. Folio 118r, David in prayer, 73mm. by 44mm., the king kneeling in a gothic chapel, his harp and hound behind him, a timber frame loft above, God appearing at a window; full border including grotesques with bagpipes and long tails.

11. Folio 143v, The Crucifixion, 74mm. by 44mm., the Virgin and Saint John on one side, soldiers on the other, set under an evening sky; full border including a cockerel and an ape with a knapsack riding a wild boar and blowing a trumpet at a giraffe grotesque.

12. Folio 148r, Pentecost, 74mm. by 44mm., the Holy Dove hovering over the apostles and the Virgin who stands at a desk; full border including birds and a grotesque with bagpipes.

13. Folio 152r, Death, 67mm. by 45mm., a grey skeleton in a medieval city street casting his lance at a young man, bodies of a woman and a man lying at his feet; full border including two birds and two fighting grotesques.