Pentecost, full-page miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Bourges), c.1500]

single leaf, 177x125mm, vellum, with a miniature for the Hours of the Holy Spirit, 21 lines, 109x68mm, borders cropped, painted frame and hair of St Peter slightly rubbed, framed

The miniature is painted by the MASTER OF SPENCER 6 who is named after a richly illuminated Book of Hours in the Spencer Collection at New York Public Library (on which see J. Plummer, The Last Flowering, exh.cat., 1982, no.95A). His collaboration with the late workshop of Jean Colombe and other artists from the same region indicates that the Master of Spencer 6 was active in Bourges. He may possibly be identified as a certain Laurent Boiron, active in Bourges between 1480 and 1510 and discovered in archival sources by Jean Yves Ribault (see N. Reynaud in Les manuscrits à peintures, exh.cat., 1993, p.343). The monumental composition with three-quarter length figures enclosed within a picture frame and set against a dark background imitates small panel paintings. The play with illusionistic effects proved popular especially in the generation after Jean Fouquet, who explored novel pictorial concepts in France around the mid-15th century. Another miniature from the same manuscript shows the Massacre of the Innocents (USA, priv. coll.).