AN ASSAULT ON THE CHASTEL DE SAINT FORGET IN 1384–85, a miniature cut from a Chronicle of the Hundred Years’ War, in French, illuminated manuscript on paper. [Southern Netherlands (Bruges), late 15th century (c. 1480s)]

AN ASSAULT ON THE CHASTEL DE SAINT FORGET IN 1384–85, a miniature cut from a Chronicle of the Hundred Years’ War, in French, illuminated manuscript on paper

[Southern Netherlands (Bruges), late 15th century (c. 1480s)]

a cutting, c. 160 × 95mm, the reverse with parts of two columns of 15 lines of text written in a fine bâtarde script, which has not previously been identified, but in fact begins at the last word of Book III, chapter 49: ‘Taillart. ❡Quant ces seigneures …’, the reverse inscribed ‘11’ and with Bruce Ferrini’s inventory number ‘VM 6523’, the miniature depicting walled towns either side of a river, on which are soldiers in boats, that in the foreground with the French flag, and further soldiers with the same flag besieging one of the towns, using a canon and scaling the wall with a ladder; in a giltwood frame, with a photocopy of the reverse of the cutting stuck to the back.

PROVENANCE

1. PETER BIRMANN (1758–1844), Basel landscape painter and art dealer; sold to:
2. DANIEL BURCKHARDT-WILDT (1752–1819), Basel silk-ribbon merchant, antiquarian, and collector; fol. 44 in his album of cuttings; by descent to his heirs until sold in our rooms, 23 April 1983, lot 159, bought by:
3. H.P. Kraus, New York, Catalogue 172, no. 23; sold to:
4. Bruce Ferrini, Akron, Ohio: with his stock number; exhibited by him and Sam Fogg in 1988–89; bought from Sam Fogg by:
5. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1403

TEXT

The 1983 catalogue describes the text as ‘based on but not identical with that of Froissart’. The text on the reverse of the present cutting (reproduced in Ferrini & Fogg, 1988) is indeed similar to, but somewhat different from the 1931 edition by Léon Mirot of the Chroniques of Froissart: while the last words on our cutting are ‘et qui vivement tiroient occupoient que ce[...]’, for example, the edition has ‘et qui onniement traioient ensonnient tant ceulx’.

ILLUMINATION

The style of illumination is that of the so-called Bruges Master of 1482, who is named after his contribution to a copy of Bartholomaeus Anglicus, Livre des propriété des choses, copied in Bruges in 1482 (London, British Library, Royal MS 15 E.iii). Georges Dogaer remarks that ‘His hallmark is a colourful palette, most fully deployed in the costumes of his figures … [he] usually paints these figures grouped in the foreground' (Dogaer, 1987), while Walter Cahn & James Marrow refer to his ‘distinctive linear style animated by bright, saturated colors’ (Cahn & Marrow, 1978, p. 258). Dogaer provides a list of ten manuscripts to which he contributed, including at least four produced for the great bibliophile Louis de Bruges, Seigneur de Gruuthuse. For an artist working in Flanders in the late 15th-century it is remarkable that he does not seem to have contributed to any Books of Hours or liturgical manuscripts, having been in demand, instead, for the illustration of secular works for courtly patrons, including books about hunting and hawking, most of them in French rather than Latin. The present text is therefore entirely in keeping with this area of specialisation.

Thirteen miniatures are known from this manuscript, all of which were sold in our rooms in the Burckhardt-Wildt sale, 26 April 1983, lots 153–165:

• Lot 153. The Funeral of the Constable of France
• Lot 154. The Funeral of Philip VI of France
• Lot 155. The Kings of Portugal and England Crossing a River with Their Armies
• Lot 156. The King of England in a Thunderstorm the Night before a Battle
• Lot 157. The King of England Receiving a Herald from the King of France (resold in our rooms, 5 July 2011, lot 17)
• Lot 158. Edward III Conferring the Order of the Garter
• Lot 159. The present miniature
• Lot 160. An Ambassador Arriving to Visit the Counts of Brittany and Flanders
• Lot 161. The King of Portugal Giving an Audience
• Lot 162. A Battle Between France and Flanders
• Lot 163. A Naval Engagement before a Walled City
• Lot 164. The Peace Proposals between the Kings of France and England
• Lot 165. The Arrival of the German Emperor (resold at Christie’s, 15 December 2021, lot 43)

Six of these (lots 153–56 and 162–63) were bought by [Edward] Lubin, of which five are now at the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art in Hartford, CT (W.A. 1983.41-45).

REFERENCES

Chroniques de J. Froissart, troisième livre, XII: 1356–1388, ed. by L. Mirot (Paris, 1869).

W. Cahn and J. Marrow, ‘Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts at Yale: A Selection’, The Yale University Library Gazette, 52 no. 4 (1978), pp. 256–59.

H.P. Kraus, Catalogue 172: Illuminations: Examples of the Art of Illumination from the Thirteenth to the Early Sixteenth Century in Manuscripts and Single Miniatures (New York [1985]), no. 23 (col. ill.).

G. Dogaer, Flemish Miniature Painting in the 15th and 16th Centuries (Amsterdam, 1987), pp. 126–27, with further bibliography.

Bruce Ferrini Rare Books and Sam Fogg Rare Books & Manuscripts, Medieval & Renaissance Miniature Painting, catalogue by S. Hindman of an exhibition held in London, Tokyo, and Nagoya, 1988–1989 (Akron, OH, and London, 1988), no. 37.