CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS, a large miniature, initial, and full border on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum. [France (Brittany, Rennes), 15th century (c.1430s)]

CHRIST BEFORE CAIAPHAS, a large miniature, initial, and full border on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum

[France (Brittany, Rennes), 15th century (c.1430s)]

a leaf, c. 180 × 140mm, with a miniature for Prime in the Hours of the Virgin above four lines of text and a four-line initial, surrounded by a full border, the miniature depicting Christ, bleeding from his crown of thorns, his wrists bound, brought by a group of men in armour and brightly coloured clothes before Caiaphas, enthroned and holding a fleur-de-lys-topped sceptre, the scene set off against a diaper background and a striking floor of small triangular green and black tiles; in fine condition overall, in an attractive 19th-century gilt frame with punch-tooled designs.

PROVENANCE

1. From a manuscript already broken-up by the late 19th century, when one of the miniatures was bequeathed to the Musée Dobrée, Nantes (Charron et al., 2013).
2. Perhaps owned by Pierre Berès, Paris, who had three other leaves from the same manuscript (Berès, [1974]), the present leaf was also published by Eberhard König in 1982 as being on the Paris art market.
3. Neil F. Philips (1924–1997), Q.C., of Montreal, New York, and Virginia; by descent to his heirs; sold in our rooms, 23 June 1998, lot 27 (col. ill.); bought by a Belgian collector.
4. Sold in our rooms, 5 July 2016, lot 36 (col. ill.); bought by:
5. The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1436

ILLUMINATION

This fine Breton miniature was published by Eberhard Konig as the work of the MASTER OF WALTERS 221 (König, 1982, p. 120, fig. 285). The artist, named after a fragmentary Book of Hours in the Walters Art Museum, Baltimore, was active in western France in the 1430s and 1440s. A major centre of book illumination, Rennes was a thriving city that had largely escaped the ravages of the Hundred Years’ War. John Plummer, in his description of Morgan Library, MS M. 173 (Plummer, 1982) states that it was probably painted by two illuminators, to whom the three Berès miniatures can be attributed; in fact, the two artists can also be distinguished among the three Berès miniatures: the artist of his Entombment is the one responsible for the present miniature.

Five other miniatures from the same manuscript are known to have survived:

• The Entombment (Berès, no. 8 (ill.))
• The Last Judgement (Berès, no. 9 (ill.))
• St Sebastian (Berès, no. 10 (ill.); sold at Christie’s, 10 July 2019, lot 508)
• The Betrayal (sold in our rooms, 4 December 2007, lot 27, and 23 May 2017, lot 24, col. ill.; and at Christie’s, 10 July 2019, lot 509 (col. ill.))
• The Lamentation (Nantes, Musée Dobrée, inv. 896.1.4159)

REFERENCES

Pierre Berès, Paris, Manuscrits & enluminures du onzième au dix-huitième siècle [c.1974 (after May 1973)], nos. 8–10.

E. König, Französische Buchmalerei um 1450: der Jouvenal-Maler, der Maler des Genfer Boccaccio, und die Anfänge Jean Fouquets (Berlin, 1982), p. 120 and fig. 285 (‘Paris, Kunsthandel’).

J. Plummer, The Last Flowering: French Painting in Manuscripts, 1420–1530, from American Collections (New York, 1982), pp. 17–18.

Trésors enluminés des musées de France: pays de la Loire et Centre, ed. by P. Charron et al. (Angers & Paris, 2013), no 27.

J.-L. Deuffic, Le livre d’heures enluminé en Bretagne (Turnhout, 2019), p. 410 no. 134.