The Trinity and King David(?), two small miniatures on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Bayeux or Coutances), c.1420-30]

single leaf, 177x132mm, vellum, two small miniatures for the suffrages to the Trinity and the Holy Spirit with sprays of foliage into margins, rubric at end of verso ‘De sanctis petro et paulo’, 14 lines, 95x65mm, miniature with Trinity heavily rubbed, edges yellowed from framing, lower corner partly cut away

 

This leaf belongs to a group of Books of Hours made in Bayeux and Coutances in the 1420s, when Normandy was mostly under English occupation. At that time, manuscripts were more frequently made in Rouen, the capital city of Normandy (F. Avril in Manuscrits à peintures, 1993, p.169). Although the style is somewhat provincial, the execution is very fine and detailed. A Book of Hours for the Use of Coutances today at Caen, Bib. mun., ms.1065, sold in our rooms, 7 December 1992, lot 63, includes similar foliage for the borders, and the rare text for the suffrage to the Trinity is identical in both manuscripts. The iconography of the second miniature is unusual: normally a suffrage to the Holy Spirit would be illustrated with a Pentecost scene, but the subject here seems to be based on King David in Penitence, as often found at the beginning of the Penitential Psalms.