Workshop of the Rohan Master - photo 1
Workshop of the Rohan Master - photo 2
Workshop of the Rohan Master - photo 3

Workshop of the Rohan Master

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£ 2 394
Auction dateClassic
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +01:00
Auctioneer
CHRISTIE'S
Event location
United Kingdom, London
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ID 993259
Lot 11 | Workshop of the Rohan Master
Workshop of the Rohan Master

A Woman Kneeling before the Virgin Mary, in a miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours illuminated in the style of the Rohan Master, illuminated manuscript on vellum [western France?, c.1430]

A charming miniature from a Book of Hours illuminated by the workshop of the Rohan Master.



165 x 124mm. The recto with a large miniature above four lines of text and a three-line foliate initial ‘O’ beginning the prayer ‘Obsecro te […]’, surrounded by a full border, the text continuing on the reverse, the miniature depicting a lay woman kneeling before the Virgin enthroned, with the Child on her lap, and two angels supporting a cloth of honour behind them (the upper edge cropped, the leaf somewhat cockled, and the miniature abraded with loss of pigments). Framed.



Provenance:

(1) Made for a female patron, depicted in the present miniature.



(2) Owned from the 15th until at least the 18th century by members of the Thouroude/Thouroulde family of Rouen, with their notes on endleaves.



(3) C.G. Boerner, Leipzig, Auktion 110, Manuskripte mit Miniaturen des XIII. bis XV. Jahrhunderts … 28 November 1912, lot 7 (2 col. ills.); presumably unsold, and re-offered with a more detailed description: Boerner, Katalog XXV: Gothische [sic] Miniaturmalerei (Leipzig [1913]), no. 9 (2 ills.); perhaps still unsold, and therefore broken-up by 1937:



(4) G. Aubry, offered anonymously with the 16 other miniatures at the Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Catalogue de dessins anciens […] enluminures du XVIe siècle, composant la collection d’un amateur, 22 February 1937, lots 36–52, the present miniature lot 52, but perhaps unsold, as four of them were sold from the Aubry collection by A. Bellier at the Hôtel Drouot, Dessins anciens […], 13 February 1939, lots 25–28, for 5,000FF.



Sister leaves:

The manuscript had 17 miniatures and one historiated initial when described in 1912 and 1913:

1. (f.18) The present miniature

2. (f.26) St Matthew (ex-Florence Gould, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 April, 1985, part of lot 90; Ferrini, 1989, no 17 (ill.); Maruzen, 1988, no 25)

3. (f.28) St Mark (ex-Florence Gould, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 April, 1985, part of lot 90)

4. (f.29) St Luke

5. (f.31) St John

6. (f.33) The Annunciation (Boerner, 1912, col. ill.)

7. (f.44) The Visitation (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, B 1906; col. ill. in Boerner, 1912)

8. (f.55) The Crucifixion (Ferrini and Fogg, 1988, no. 24 (col.ill.))

9. (f.56v) The Virgin surrounded by saints

10. (f.57v) The Nativity

11. (f.63v) The Annunciation to the Shepherds

12. (f.69v) The Adoration of the Magi

13. (f.75r) The Presentation in the Temple (ex-Florence Gould, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 April, 1985, part of lot 90)

14. (f.80v) The Flight into Egypt (Art market)

15. (f.88v) The Coronation of the Virgin

16. (f.95) King David (ex-Florence Gould, Sotheby’s, New York, 25 April, 1985, part of lot 90)

17. (f.113) A Personification of Death Chasing a Man (Boerner, 1912, pl. X)



The historiated initial depicting the Madonna was on f.21v, and doubtless introduced the prayer ‘O intemerata’.



Illumination:

Jean Porcher suggested that the ex-Boerner parent volume belongs to a group of manuscripts painted entirely by the Rohan Master between 1405 and 1415 (The Rohan Book of Hours (London, 1959), pp.10 and 32 n. 11); Millard Meiss included the leaf now in Stockholm (apparently the only one he knew) among the works of the Master, but dated it somewhat later, between 1410 and 1417 (French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, 2 vols (New York, London, 1974), p. 404), while Carl Nordenfalk attributed it to the Master or his workshop, and dated it later still, to the period c.1415–25, when he was in the service of Duchess Yolande of Anjou (Bokmålningar Från Medeltid Och Renässans i Nationalmusei Samlingar (Stockholm, 1979, no 27); the latter opinion was accepted and supported by Sandra Hindman (Bruce Ferrini and Sam Fogg, Medieval & Renaissance Miniature Painting, 1988, no 24, and Bruce Ferrini, Catalog Two: A Selection of Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Single Leaves, 1989, no 17).





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This lot is offered without reserve.
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