Book of Hours, Use of Metz, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Metz, late fourteenth century]

provenance

1. Produced for a patron based in Metz in the late fourteenth century; with SS. Arnulf (11 October) and Clement (23 November), both bishops of Metz, in Calendar.

2. Pope Pius XI (held office 1922-9), the scholar, Latin palaeographer, Church librarian and developer of library classification systems for the Vatican; presented to him on 23 April 1913 when he was prefect of the Vatican library, by Pietro Garghi: his inscriptions on endleaves.

3. Sold in these rooms, 15 June 1959, lot 150; to Maggs, Cat.866, no.66.

4. Sold again in our rooms, 11 December 1979, lot 65, bought by the present owner.

literature

C. M. Mark, 'Manuscript Illumination in Metz in the fourteenth century: Books of Hours, Workshops and Personal Devotion', PhD., Princeton, 1991, II, pp.697-99

E. Nunes in Enlumineres messin du XVe siècle, Metz, 2007, p.71, no.33

text

A Calendar in French (fol. 1r); Hours of the Virgin, with Matins (13r), Lauds (28v), Prime (44r), Terce (52v), Sext (58r), None (63r), Vespers (68v), Compline (78r); Pentitential Psalms (85r) and Litany; and Office of the Dead (109r).

decoration

This is one of a small and tight-knit group of fourteenth-century Metz Books of Hours associated with the Hours of Queen Isabel of Bavaria (BnF.ms.lat.1403). The group has been studied by C. Nordenfalk (Linköpings biblioteks handlingar 4, 1953, pp.65-88), and related examples can be found in Walters Art Gallery MS. 91, Pierpont Morgan M.88, Linköping Library MS.T.285, a book formerly in the Dyson Perrins sale in our rooms, 1 December 1959, lot 67 (now Barber Institute, Birmingham), and that sold in our rooms 13 July 1977, lot 40.

This volume is of particular importance as a witness to the appreciation of Early Medieval art in and around Metz in the fourteenth century. Like other examples of this group, this book includes the iconography of the Virgin suckling Christ with a bared breast (fol.13r). Meiss (The Late Fourteenth Century, 1967, pp. 126-7, figs. 548 and 453) traced its origin to a twelfth-century tomb-relief of a mother and child which appears to have been discovered in Metz c.1300, and was venerated there as a relic of the Virgin and Child.

What appears to be individual to this manuscript is the image of Christ in majesty on fol.89r. There the artist eschews the standard imagery of the Saviour seated in a mandorla or on a rainbow, and seats him on a large blue cushion before draped curtains gathered at the midpoint of the miniature, a scene strongly reminiscent of late Antique and Carolingian images of Christ. In 1380, Archbishop Kuno von Falkenstein (1362-88) of nearby Trier commissioned an evangeliary which included updated copies of the miniatures in the tenth-century Codex Egberti (Beier, Buchmalerei für Metz und Trier im 14.Jahrhundert, 2003). A number of the artists involved in this evangeliary had worked in Metz, and strong parallels can be drawn between the image of Christ bearing the Cross there and that on fol.60r of the present manuscript (as well as in other Metz Books of Hours in this group; see Nordenfalk). The posture of Christ here and the composition of the miniature is close to that in the Lorsch Gospels (Vatican Pal.Lat.50 & Alba Iulia, Biblioteca Documenta Batthyaneum; c.815), which in the fourteenth century was in Lorsch, approximately 100 miles from Metz and Trier. Studies taken from the Lorsch Gospels, or one of its tenth-century descendents, may well have circulated among artists in Metz and Trier, and stand behind the image in this manuscript.

The miniatures comprise:

1. folio 13r, a rectangular miniature, 55mm. by 45mm., enclosing the Virgin suckling the naked Christ Child (who holds two roses), seated together in a garden on a crescent moon (in which a women's face appears), all before a burnished gold background; some minor rubbing to background exposing red under-layer.

2. folio 29v, a rectangular miniature, 42mm. by 38mm., enclosing the arrest of Christ, Judas kissing Christ while two soldiers approach from the right and St. Peter draws his sword over a small boy on the left, all before a burnished gold background; some scratches and minor flaking affecting soldiers' faces.

3. folio 46r, a rectangular miniature, 45mm. by 40mm., enclosing Christ lead by two soldiers, before Caiphas, all before a burnished gold background; some minor flaking from soldiers' faces, and more serious scratching and scuffing to figure of Caiphas (perhaps intentional).

4. folio 54v, a square miniature, 45mm. by 45mm., enclosing the scourging of Christ, with Christ bound to a stake between his torturers, all before a red background heightened with gold scrolls; scratches to faces of torturers (again perhaps intentional).

5. folio 60r, a square miniature, 47mm. by 47mm., enclosing Christ carrying the Cross, led by a man in a green tunic with red buttons who holds a hammer, and looking back at the Virgin and another woman who follow, all on deep red background heightened with gold scrolls; some very minor rubbing to face of man.

6. folio 65r, a rectangular miniature, 43mm. by 45mm., enclosing the Crucifixion, with Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and St. John, all before a blue background heightened with gold scrolls; excellent condition.

7. folio 70v, a rectangular miniature, 42mm. by 45mm., enclosing the Descent from the Cross, Joseph of Arimathea lowering Christ's body as the Virgin and St. John look on, all before a burnished gold background; some scuffing to body of Christ and upper part of body of  Joseph of Arimathea.

8. folio 81r, a rectangular miniature, 45mm. by 40mm., enclosing the Entombment of Christ, before a burnished gold background; some scuffing to left hand side of miniature and discolouration of pigments in faces.

9. folio 89r, a square miniature, 40mm. by 40mm., enclosing Christ seated in majesty between flowing open white curtains, gathered at the midpoint of the miniature, one hand on a gold globe, the other raised in blessing; excellent condition.

10. folio 113r, a rectangular miniature, 55mm. by 45mm., enclosing a funeral service, with a bier draped in red before two priests and two monks who read prayers and mourn, all before a burnished gold background; some rubbing to centre of miniature.