The Annunciation to the Shepherds, miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Paris), c.1490-1500]

single leaf, 175x120mm, vellum, with a miniature for Terce in the Hours of the Virgin, 14 lines, 100x69mm, panel border on verso, cropped, fragments of illuminated border added at top, in fresh condition

This miniature can be added to the rich corpus of works attributed to the MASTER OF JACQUES DE BESANÇON, who can probably be identified as François Le Barbier the younger, a parishioner of Saint-Denis de la Chartre on the Île de la Cité which was demolished in 1806 (see M. Deldicque in Revue de l'Art, 183, 2014, pp.9-18). The style of the Master of Jacques de Besançon is defined by a small miniature of John, in an Office of St John (Paris, Bibliothèque Mazarine, ms.461, f. 9r). The colophon in the manuscript records the donation of the work to the confraternity of St John in 1485 by one of its members, the 'enlumineur' Jacques de Besançon. Despite the temptation to identify this artist as Jacques de Besançon himself, he is more commonly known as the Master of Jacques de Besançon. This artist was a young collaborator and direct successor to Maître François, now identified as François Le Barbier the elder, who lived in the 1460s on the bridge of Notre-Dame (see ibid.). In the centre of the scene of the Annunciation to the Shepherds is a shepherdess who affectionately strokes the sheep next to her.