Follower of the Master of Jean sans Peur

Lot 8
12.07.2023 00:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Vendu
£ 4 410
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Lieu de l'événementRoyaume-Uni, London
Commissionsee on Website%
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ID 993228
Lot 8 | Follower of the Master of Jean sans Peur
Valeur estimée
£ 3 000 – 5 000
Follower of the Master of Jean sans Peur

The Visitation, full-page miniature from a Book of Hours, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Flanders, probably Ghent, first quarter 15th century]

A sweet, suggestive scene influenced by the pre-Eyckian Flemish style of the Master of Jean sans Peur.



151 x 116mm., single leaf with a full page miniature and sparse ivyleaf, foliated in pencil '46', the miniature with a gold and blue diaper background, Elizabeth greeting her cousin Mary by putting one arm around her shoulders and the other hand on her belly, the verso blank (some cockling and very minor losses of pigment and gold, otherwise bright and fresh). Mounted and framed.



Provenance:

The parent manuscript belonged to the Marquess of Bute, sold at his sale, Catalogue of The Bute Collection of forty-two Illuminated Manuscripts and Miniatures, Sotheby's, 13 June 1983, lot 6 (ill.), subsequently broken up by Kraus. The manuscript was for the Use of Soissons, in north-eastern France, but the miniatures are more likely by a Flemish artist (see Illumination). The parent manuscript had a prayer to St Anne added in an Italian hand on ff.194v-195, indicating that the manuscript may have travelled to Italy in the 15th century.



Illumination:

The archaising composition with the diapered background and exaggeratedly S-shaped Virgin presenting her belly to Elizabeth recalls earlier French models (see for example the scene with the Visitation on f.50 of Walters Ms. W.96, illuminated c.1390 by a follower of Jacquemart de Hesdin), but the artist is not French, and the framing and sparse borders lead us eastwards towards Ghent. The decorative vocabulary, the elongated figures with their bunched robes, and the palette, with its soft pinks and blues (although not the faces), are reminiscent of the work of the Master of Jean sans Peur, an artist who was raised in a pre-Eyckian Flemish tradition, and who was responsible for the illumination of the Book of Hours of Jean sans Peur (BnF, Ms NAL 3055) and a Book of Hours in New York (Morgan Library MS M.439), on which he collaborated with Jean Semont (see D. Vanwijnsberghe, « Moult bons et notables »: l'enluminure touraisienne à l'époque de Robert Campin (1380-1430), 2007 and Miniatures Flamandes: 1404-1482, 2011, pp.159-161).

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12.07.2023 – 12.07.2023
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