Northern French Artist - photo 1
Northern French Artist - photo 2

Northern French Artist

Lot 26
09.12.2020 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Starting price
£ 4 000
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 470213
Lot 26 | Northern French Artist
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Northern French Artist

Sts Peter and John preaching in Samaria, northern France, perhaps Paris, c.1425

SAINTS PETER AND JOHN PREACHING IN SAMARIA, miniature from a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript on vellum [northern France, perhaps Paris, c.1425]



A rare miniature to illustrate the Hours of the Holy Spirit; a survival from a Book of Hours produced in Paris or the surrounding regions that must have boasted a notably full iconographic programme, suggesting an original commission of some significance.



101 x 80mm. The miniature with an inscription at the foot ‘Imponebant manus super illos, et accipiebant spiritum sanctum, actuum viii’: it illustrates the description in Acts 8:14-24 of the conversion of Samaria and the calling down by Peter and John of the Holy Ghost on the new converts and was likely part of an miniature cycle illustrating the Hours of the Holy Spirit. Verso with 14 lines, from Psalm 86 ‘Fundamenta eius’ (laid down, light surface soiling). Provenance: (1) Sotheby’s, 20 June 1989, lot 11. (2) Quaritch, thence to the present collection.



The present miniature is one of a group traditionally linked on stylistic grounds to the Bedford Master, the illuminator named from his work in 1420s and 1430s Paris for John, duke of Bedford, Regent of France: the six sister miniatures cut from the same parent Hours comprise an Annunciation to the Shepherds (Musée de Chartres), Flagellation (Les Enluminures, cat.3, no 20), Deposition (Les Enluminures, cat.10, no 5), Mary Magdalene and St Margaret (Munich, Graphische Sammlung, Inv. 40272), Pentecost (Les Enluminures, cat. 5, no 16a) and St Peter Preaching (Les Enluminures, cat.5, no 16b), the final two also likely illustrating the Hours of the Holy Spirit. Certain of these might seem to exhibit the same type of ‘stocky, bulbous-nosed figures derived from Netherlandish painting’ that Millard Meiss had attributed to a 'Trend towards Bedford’ in Paris in the early 15th century (The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries, 1974, pp.363-4), but no scholarly consensus has been reached for the group, within which there appear to be at least two hands at work: the Flagellation miniature, for example, is quite different in style and composition to ours and is almost reminiscent of the work of the Rohan Master. Greg Clark suggests that our miniature may have been painted by an artist working in the circle of the Master of the Duke of Berry's Apocalypse in the 1410s (Art in a Time of War, 2016, pp. 24-25), while Nicole Reynaud has suggested that the style of the miniatures may not be Parisian at all, rather provincial; she puts forward a date of production around 1425. Wherever the Book of Hours from which these miniatures originate was painted, it must have been a commission of some significance to have boasted the Hours of the Holy Spirit illustrated with a full cycle of miniatures, where Pentecost alone would normally suffice at the opening of the office.

Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
8 King Street, St. James's
SW1Y 6QT London
United Kingdom
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09.12.2020 – 09.12.2020
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