The Annunciation, full-page miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, Use of Rome, in Latin and French [Hainaut (perhaps Valenciennes), c.1500-10]

single leaf, 185x143mm, vellum, with a miniature for Matins in the Hours of the Virgin, recto ruled for 19 lines, 110x85mm, with a ‘Tres especiale salutation a la glorieuse vierge Marie’ beginning ‘Ave ancilla trinitatis’ and another calligraphic rubric introducing the Hours of the Virgin, ‘seloncq lusaige de Rome’, with an added inscription in French ‘pour obeir a votre comandement / me suis mis an ceste place / vous priant humblement / de me tenir an votre bone grace’, signed in monogram ‘Ab’, somewhat worn overall; the border of the miniature incorporating an armorial shield (quarterly, 1 and 4, barry of gules and argent, 2 and 3 now erased, an escutcheon of pretence, also erased but apparently using or)

From the collection of Octave and Pierre Chavaillon, Paris.

This delicately painted miniature is especially attractive because of its subtle colour scheme: intense blue, glowing green and soft orange highlight the Virgin and the archangel Gabriel, while the white dove, the symbol for the Holy Spirit, blends into the architecture solely painted in white. The miniature is framed with a trompe l’oeil border, accurately depicting flowers, strawberries and insects that seem scattered across the surface. Anne-Marie Legaré attributed this work to the MASTER OF MS ARIANE 1, named after a manuscript in the Bibliothèque Publique et Universitaire, Geneva, and included it in the small published corpus of this Master’s work (‘Du Nouveau sur l’enluminure en Hainaut…’, in Manuscripts in Transition, Recycling Manuscripts, Texts and Images, 2005, pp.415-16, no.19). The artist, active in the Hainaut region around 1500, is stylistically very close to the Master of Antoine Rolin under whom he may have trained. The coat of arms in the lower border suggests a personal commission.