Christ before Pilate, miniature from the Tarleton Hours, in Latin, on vellum [northern France (probably Rouen), c.1430)

single leaf, 142mm. by 106mm., with a three-quarter page miniature of Christ before Pilate by the Master of Harvard Hannibal (for the beginning of Lauds in the Hours of the Virgin foliated as fol.29), with Christ standing with his hands bound, Pilate enthroned under a baldachin decorated with small flowers and resting his hands on a white cloth, against a chequered ground, above 4 lines of text in a gothic bookhand, with a 4-line initial in blue on a red and gold ground filled with red and blue ivy leaves, text and miniature surrounded by a three-quarter frame and rinceau borders with gold ivy leaves, the verso with 21 lines of text, written space 106mm. by 67mm., rubrics in red, one- and 2-line initials and line-fillers in gold on red and blue grounds, margins cropped with losses to borders, small pigment losses to miniature, silver oxidised, in good condition, gilt frame

(1) This leaf belonged to the well-known Tarleton Hours, a manuscript named after the family that owned it between 1784 and 1951. When auctioned at Christie’s, 3 July 1951, lot 50, the manuscript included 35 miniatures which were sold subsequently by Maggs as individual leaves. The remaining body of the manuscript was sold in our rooms, 20 June 1989, lot 58 (including a list of recorded miniatures; see also our sales, 2 December 2003, lot 69 and 3 December 2013, lot 19; another miniature in our rooms, 8 July 2014, lot 18, also belonged to the Tarleton Hours). The whereabouts of the present leaf have been unknown since it was sold by Maggs, 20 January 1952 and it comes to the market here for the first time in more than half a century.

The Tarleton Hours was for Sarum Use and was probably made in Rouen in Normandy during the English occupation at the end of the Hundred Years' War. The woman for whom the manuscript was made appears in a miniature with her heraldic arms (Maggs, Bulletin 6, 1969, no.7).

illumination

The Tarleton Hours were illuminated in two styles, one of which can be identified with the Master of Harvard Hannibal (fl. c.1415-40), including the miniature here. He was named by Millard Meiss after the miniature of the Coronation of Hannibal in a French translation of Livy (Cambridge, MA., Harvard, Houghton Library, Richardson MS.32, fol.263r). In his early works the Harvard Hannibal Master collaborated with the Boucicaut Master while his later works are strongly influenced by the Limbourg brothers. The Harvard Hannibal Master trained and worked in Paris although later he probably moved to Rouen. The style of the second artist working in the Tarleton Hours strengthens a localisation to Rouen rather than Paris.