Dunois Master (fl1430-65) - photo 1
Dunois Master (fl1430-65) - photo 2

Dunois Master (fl1430-65)

Lot 28
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 8 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470129
Lot 28 | Dunois Master (fl1430-65)
Estimate value
£ 8 000 – 12 000
Dunois Master (fl.1430-65)

Madonna of Humility, Rouen, c.1450-60

MADONNA OF HUMILITY, miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Rouen, c.1450-60]



A splendidly inventive miniature by the dominant Parisian illuminator of the mid-15th century, the Dunois Master.



193 x 137mm. The Madonna of Humility opening the prayer O intemerata in a Book of Hours. Reverse with 16 lines of tex within a full border, ruled space: 100 x 55mm, modern pencil foliation in lower corners '67' (faces somewhat rubbed, small losses of pigment to the robes of the Virgin). Mounted. Provenance: This miniature and the previous come from an incomplete Book of Hours for the use of Rouen (Sotheby's, 5 December 2000, lot 62). The pencil foliation was done when the manuscript was already fragmentary and misbound. Four single text leaves and two bifolia were sold at Christie's, 11 July 2002, lot 5.



Illumination: The illuminator of the Madonna of Humility is not the same as the Flight into Egypt, the other surviving miniature from this manuscript. This refined miniature is by the Dunois Master, the successor of the Bedford Master as the leading painter in Paris (Avril and Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France: 1440-1520, 1993, p.37) and is an exquisite example of his work in conception and execution. The Master worked extensively for the French court, as in his name work, the Count of Dunois’s Book of Hours (British Library, Yates Thompson 3), and the Hours of Simon de Varie, dated 1455 (J. Paul Getty Museum and The Hague KB). Gregory Clark has pointed out the similarities between the present miniature and the Dunois Master's work in the Clumber Park Chartier (now Beinecke Library MS 1216): we see the same obsessively patterned outdoor settings (especially the verdant trellis, comparable to f.94v in the Chartier manuscript), the same pale, delicate faces with fluffy, parted hair (also present in the corresponding scene in British Library Yates Thompson 3, f.27v).

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