Pentecost, miniature from an illuminated Book of Hours, in Latin, on vellum [France (Bourges), c.1475]

single leaf, 160mm. by 108mm., with a full-page miniature of the Pentecost by Jean Colombe (for the Hours of the Holy Spirit), in a church interior with massed saints behind the Virgin and Apostles, one Apostle lying in the foreground beneath the text as though on a scroll, with three lines of text in a gothic bookhand, with a 3-line initial in gold camaïeu d’or containing a bust-figure in profile, the miniature within an architectural frame of two columns, architrave and socle, the verso with 15 lines written in a gothic bookhand, written space 108mm. by 70mm., capitals in yellow, rubrics in red, one- and 2-line initials in burnished gold on red and blue grounds, miniature rubbed, thumbing to frame, upper and outer margin trimmed to frame

This miniature is the work of the prolific painter Jean Colombe (c.1463-93). He was a member of a prominent family of artists in Bourges. The success of the Colombe workshop was ultimately due to court patronage and above all to the favour of Queen Charlotte of Savoy (1443-83), wife of Louis XI. Colombe is known to have completed the famous Très Riches Heures, begun by the Limbourg brothers (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS.65) but left unfinished at the death of John, duke of Berry in 1416. Colombe’s work was keenly appreciated by a wide clientele and his workshop was responsible for the production of a large number of devotional and secular manuscripts. Colombe’s illuminations are influenced by the work of Jean Fouquet. He was deeply impressed by Fouquet’s transformation of the textual openings into illusionist placards positioned below the miniatures, as in the scene here.

The present miniature comes from a Book of Hours sold Christie’s, 2 June 1999, lot 38, which had the same distinctive page layout throughout.