Bellemare group (fl.1522-1551) - photo 1

Bellemare group (fl.1522-1551)

Lot 31
14.12.2022 10:30UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 6 300
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 870719
Lot 31 | Bellemare group (fl.1522-1551)
Estimate value
£ 5 000 – 8 000
Bellemare group (fl.1522-1551)

A leaf with flowers, butterflies, bees and ladybirds, from a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris or Tours, c.1520s]

A charming text leaf whose exquisitely realistic floral borders reveal the distinctive impact of Antwerp-trained painter Noël Bellemare on French Renaissance illumination.



112 x 63mm. 3-line blue initial 'D' opening Lauds in the Hours of the Virgin, 21 lines of text, ruled space: 77 x 34mm, initials in black and liquid gold, all within a full border inhabited with naturalistic plant stems and flowers, a ladybird, a bee, and a blue butterfly, all on a liquid gold ground (small smudge, else in excellent condition).



Provenance:

(1) From a Book of Hours belonging to Baron Jerome Pichon (1812-1896): his sale in Paris, 18 April 1869, lot 18.

(2) Sam Fogg, cat.14 (1991), no 39; afterwards broken up.

(3) Sotheby's, 22 June 2004, lot 34.



This leaf is a prime example of the work of the Bellemare group, named for their association with Noël Bellemare, the Antwerp-trained painter under whose direction an entirely new style was introduced to French manuscript illumination in the second quarter of the 16th century. First identified by Myra Orth – who named them the ‘1520s Hours Workshop’ – the atelier was responsible for illuminating at least 26 high quality manuscripts, dating from c.1522 until c.1551, the majority of these small-format Books of Hours written in a delicate humanistic script, as seen in the present leaf. The workshop produced some of the finest naturalistic studies of flowers and insects ever painted up to that time. Unlike the Netherlandish 'scatter borders', those of the French court usually included whole plants, apparently growing around the pages, so naturalistic that it appears to have attracted insects to the page.



Leaves from this dismembered manuscript were described in Pirages, cat. 49, nos. 88-95. Other leaves from the same manuscript are described in S. N. Fliegel, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999, pp.71-2, no 69. A further leaf appeared at Sotheby's, 6 July 2010, lot 21.





Special notice


This lot has been imported from outside of the UK for sale and placed under the Temporary Admission regime. Import VAT is payable at 5% on the hammer price. VAT at 20% will be added to the buyer’s premium but will not be shown separately on our invoice.
Place of origin:Western Europe, France, Europe
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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10.12.2022 – 13.12.2022
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