The Limbourg Brothers
The Limbourg Brothers
Reflections on the Origins and the Legacy of Three Illuminators from Nijmegen
Edited by
Rob Dückers Pieter Roelofs
LEIDEN • BOSTON
Cover illustration: The Limbourg Brothers, January from the Très Riches Heures, / – (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. iv.) [Photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]. Originally published as Volume , Nos. - () of Brill’s journal Quærendo. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The Limbourg brothers : reflections on the origins and the legacy of three illuminators from Nijmegen / edited by Rob Dückers, Pieter Roelofs. p. cm . Includes bibliographical references. ISBN ---- (hardback : alk. paper) . Limbourg, Herman de, ca. ca. —Congresses. . Limbourg, Pol de, ca. -ca. —Congresses. . Limbourg, Jean de, ca. -ca. —Congresses. . Illumination of books and manuscripts, Medieval—Netherlands—Congresses. . Illumination of books and manuscripts, Dutch—Exhibitions. I. Dückers, Rob. II. Roelofs, Pieter. III. Title: Reflections on the origins and the legacy of three illuminators from Nijmegen. ND.LL .’—dc
ISBN Copyright by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission from the publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, Rosewood Drive, Suite , Danvers, MA , USA. Fees are subject to change. printed in the netherlands
Contents
Introduction: The Homecoming of the Limbourg Brothers .......... Rob Dückers and Pieter Roelofs Some Portraits by Johan Maelwael, Painter of the Dukes of Burgundy ................................................................................. Victor M. Schmidt The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duke of Berry Manuscript and the Question of the Artists’ ‘Hands’ .......................................... Margaret Lawson Likeness, Loyalty, and the Life of the Court Artist: Portraiture in the Calendar Scenes of the Très Riches Heures ............................ Stephen Perkinson A Pilgrim’s Additions. Traces of Pilgrimage in the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry ............................................................................ Hanneke van Asperen Was kann man aus den Belles Heures über die Limburgs lernen? .... Eberhard König Guelders-France. Another Connection around .................... Herman Th. Colenbrander A Close Encounter? The Limbourg Brothers and Illumination in the Northern Netherlands in the First Half of the FifteenthCent ury ..................................................................... Rob Dückers The Master of Guillebert de Mets, Philip the Good, and the Breviary of John the Fearless ..................................................... Gregory T. Clark NotesonCont ributors ................................................................. Name Index (compiled by Roderick Pelser) ......................................
Introduction: The Homecoming of the Limbourg Brothers
Born in Nijmegen, sometime between and , Herman, Paul, and Jean de Limbourg left for France around , where they were to develop an outstanding reputation at the prestigious court of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy and later that of Jean, duc de Berry. Nevertheless the brothers would maintain close links with their native city throughout their lives, following the example of their uncle Johan Maelwael – court painter of Queen Isabelle of France and the duke of Burgundy. The Limbourgs returned from Paris and Bourges to Nijmegen and to their family on several occasions, the final visit occuring in , less than a year before their untimely death. Although Herman, Paul and Jean de Limbourg were barely thirty years old when they suddenly died in , they already had a formidable career behind them. Now, almost six hundred years after their creation, the colourful and highly refined miniatures in the Belles Heures and Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry still speak vividly to our imagination (illus. ). From August th through November th, , Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen presented the exhibition The Limbourg Brothers. Nijmegen Masters at the French Court (-). The exhibition, inaugurated by Her Majesty Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands, was a unique cultural event in Nijmegen (illus. ). Never before had such a presentation been mounted, focussing upon the three Nijmegen brothers and their art. This was also the first time that original miniatures from four manuscripts by the Limbourg brothers were shown in the Netherlands. The exhibition proved the current popularity with a wide audience of the medieval period in general, and book illumination in particular. Within twelve weeks the museum had welcomed over , visitors, which made this the best visited exhibition on manuscript painting in the Netherlands to date. The exhibition formed an excellent opportunity to invite prominent scholars to share their views on the art of the Limbourg brothers, during a two-day conference held in Nijmegen on November and , . This publication presents in written form the conference papers delivered by some of the
2
rob dückers and pieter roelofs
. An impression of the crowds visiting the exhibition.
. Her Majesty Queen Beatrix examining one of the exhibits.
introduction
3
leading scholars in the field. In that respect, the volume acts as an addendum to the catalogue. The realization of the exhibition, the catalogue and the conference owed a great deal to wide-ranging and intensive international collaboration: some museums, libraries, private collectors, churches and monasteries in Europe and the United States made a total of around masterpieces available for this special presentation. We also would like to acknowledge the contribution of the following institutions without which this project could never have been realized. We gratefully thank the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Education, Culture and Science for the substantial support they have offered to this project in the context of the Netherlands Culture Fund, as well as the following institutions: M.A.O.C. Countess van Bylandt Foundation, K.F. Hein Fund, Dutch Postgraduate School for Art History, Radboud University Nijmegen and the Limburg Brothers Foundation. Finally we thank the contributors to the conference for sharing their views, as well as the editorial board of Quærendo, especially Koert van der Horst, and Hendrik van Leusen of Brill Publishers Leiden, for having offered the opportunity to first publish these conference papers as a special and richly illustrated double issue of Quærendo. Rob Dückers PieterR oelofs
The contribution by Dr Patricia Stirnemann has not been included here, since the results of her study have already been published elsewhere; cf. Patricia Stirnemann, ‘Combien de copistes et d’artistes ont contribué aux Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry?’ in: La création artistique en France autour de , ed. É. Taburet-Delahaye (Paris ), pp. -.
Some Portraits by Johan Maelwael, Painter of the Dukes of Burgundy
Victor M. Schmidt
University of Groningen, Netherlands
The splendid exhibition on the Limbourg brothers, held in Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen in , not only provided a welcome occasion to reconsider their manuscript illuminations but also provided an opportunity to pay attention to the work of their uncle, Jean Malouel (or Johan Maelwael, to call him by his Dutch name), who was the painter of the Valois dukes of Burgundy in Dijon from until his death in . In his catalogue essay, Pieter Roelofs did a fine job by surveying what is actually known about the painter and his oeuvre. He and Rob Dückers gave me the opportunity to discuss in a catalogue entry a drawing in Copenhagen showing the Derision of Christ and its relation to the well-known Martyrdom of St Denis from Champmol, now in the Louvre (inv. M.I. ), which I suggest should be attributed to Maelwael as well. The problems surrounding the altarpiece in the Louvre are manifold, and require a more extensive discussion elsewhere. In this contribution, I want to consider some portraits of the dukes of Burgundy that may, or may not, have been painted by Maelwael. According to an ingenious hypothesis put forward by Millard Meiss and Colin Eisler in , a half-length portrait of John the Fearless in prayer, lost but known through an eighteenth-century drawing (illus. ), originally formed a diptych with the Virgin and Child with Angels in Berlin, which is generally attributed to Johan Maelwael and shown as such in the exhibition in Nijmegen.
P. Roelofs, ‘Johan Maelwael, court painter in Guelders and Burgundy’, in: The Limbourg brothers. Nijmegen masters at the French court, 1400-1416, ed. R. Dückers and P. Roelofs (Gent ), pp. -. Copenhagen, Statens Museum for Kunst, Kobberstiksammlung, inv. GB . V.M. Schmidt, in: Dückers and Roelofs, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, cat. n. . Berlin, Gemäldegalerie, inv. no. .. See M. Meiss & C. Eisler, ‘A new French primitive’, in: Burlington Magazine, (), pp. -, in part. pp. -; Dückers and Roelofs, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, cat. no. . I will discuss this picture in a forthcoming essay in: Invention: Northern Renaissance studies in honor of Molly Faries, ed. J. Chapuis (Turnhout ).
6
victor m. schmidt
i. Eighteenth-century drawing after a lost portrait of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy (original after ). Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Collection de Bourgogne, XX, f. .
The similar (but not identical) drapery in front of the duke is also seen in the Berlin picture. Moreover, the Child’s gesture towards the left seems to imply the presence of a pendant piece to that side. If this hypothesis is correct, we would have a spectacular early instance of a half-length devotional diptych.
For the early history of the devotional diptych, see V.M. Schmidt, ‘Diptychs and supplicants.
some portraits by johan maelwael
7
However, some objections can easily be raised. It is not known whether the portrait was on panel or on canvas, as the Berlin Madonna. The text on the portrait, not identified by Meiss and Eisler, runs ‘Domine Jesu accipe spiritum meum, et ne statuas illis hoc peccatum’ (‘Lord Jesus, receive my spirit, and do not hold this sin against them’). The text is taken from the Communion in the Mass for the feast of St Stephen ( December), and varies the words spoken by the protomartyr during his lapidation, commending his spirit to Christ and asking forgiveness for his murderers (Acts , -). In the portrait of John the Fearless, the text makes only sense after the murder of the duke at Montmoreau in . In fact, a portrait of the duke in Chantilly (illus. ) based on the same model as the drawing suppresses the prayer and adds ‘, Jean, duc de Bo(ur)g(og)ne fuc [sic] occis à Mo(n)tereau’. This would exclude Johan Maelwael as the painter of the original, as he was already dead by . In itself this does not need to be a problem, as it is conceivable that the portrait was added to the Berlin Madonna on a later occasion. More important, however, is the fact that the drawing, like the portrait in Chantilly, presents the duke as turned to the left instead of to the right but the inscription in readable form, so that one has to assume the unlikely situation that the draftsman, or his immediate source, had mirrored the original composition, and then flipped back the inscription. As a consequence, the original portrait of John the Fearless cannot have been intended as the companion piece of the Berlin Madonna. Although Maelwael cannot be considered as the painter of the portrait of John the Fearless on which the drawing and the painted copy in Chantilly are based, it is logical to assume that he, as the court painter, executed portraits of the duke. In fact, in (modern style) Maelwael received a payment for a portrait of John the Fearless to be dispatched to King João I of Portugal; this portrait is lost. There was another portrait of the duke, next to that of his
Precedents and contexts of fifteenth-century devotional diptychs’, in: Essays in context. Unfolding the diptych, ed. J. Hand & R. Spronk (Cambridge, MA ), pp. -. Only Georg Troescher bothered to look at the text, but he could only partially decipher it: G. Troescher, Burgundische Malerei. Malerei und Malwerke um 1400 in Burgund, dem Berry mit der Auvergne und Savoyen mit ihren Quellen und Ausstrahlungen (Berlin ), p. , n. . For the murder, see R. Vaughan, John the Fearless. The growth of the Burgundian state (London ), pp. -. ‘, John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy, was murdered at Montereau’. Chantilly, Musée Condé, inv. no. . See M. Comblen-Sonkes, Les musées de l’Institut de France (Les primitifs flamands, . Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quienzième siècle, ; Brussels ), pp. -, no. . R. Prochno, Die Kartause von Champmol. Grablege der burgundischen Herzöge 1364-1477 (Berlin ), p. .
8
victor m. schmidt
. Copy of a lost portrait of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy (original after ). Chantilly, Musée Condé.
some portraits by johan maelwael
9
father, in the cancel of the Chartreuse of Champmol. This portrait, too, is lost but it is known from a copy in alabaster from around , now in the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Dijon. Like the lost portrait of , it shows the duke in prayer. Precisely for that reason, the original may have been painted after the murder of John the Fearless as well. There is, however, a portrait of the duke that with good reasons can be considered a work of Maelwael. The portrait, known from a copy datable to the end of the th century (Musée du Louvre, inv. M.I. ), shows the duke in strict profile turned to the left, while holding with a precious gesture a ring in his right hand (illus. ). Hélène Adhémar rightly connected the stone in the ring with a balas ruby which had to be given to every new duke of Burgundy when he took possession of the duchy during an official ceremony in the abbey church of St. Bénigne in Dijon. The inventory of the goods and chattels of John the Fearless dated July mentions a ring as the first and most important item, describing it in clear fashion: ‘Premierement: ung très bon et riche annel, fait tout d’un balay très fin et net, lequel feu MS le duc Philippe, cui Dieu pardoint, ordonna par son testament estre mis ou doy des ducs de Bourgoingne ses successeurs, quand ils prendroient la possession, à saint Bénigne de Dijon, de la duchié de Bourgogne, pesant . . . XLIII karaz.’ The balas ruby is probably the same as the ‘beau balay de Flandres’ which figures in the testament of Philip the Bold drawn up on September . He left the balas ruby, together with a little ruby once in the possession of his father-in-law, Louis de Male, count of Flanders, to his wife Marguerite, with the stipulation that they were to be given to their oldest son, i.e. John the Fearless, and to his successors who will be counts of Flanders. If this identification is correct, we have to assume that the balas ruby was mounted on a ring, and given a ‘Burgundian’ rather than a specifically ‘Flemish’ significance lateron.
Prochno, op. cit. (n. ), pp. and , ill. . H. Adhémar, Le musée national du Louvre, Paris, vol. (Les primitifs flamands, . Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, ; Brussels ), pp. -. I accept Mme Adhémar’s connection between the ring in the portrait and the precious stones in the possession of the dukes, but I do not think that all of her identifications of the stones in the documents she quotes (ibid., pp. -) are correct. L. de Laborde, Les ducs de Bourgogne. Études sur les lettres, les arts et l’industrie pendant le XV e siècle. Seconde partie, vol. (Paris ), p. , no. . ‘Pareillement, demoureront à Madame compaigne, le beau balay de Flandres et un petit ruby qui fut à mon seigneur mon père, le conte de Flandres, que Dieu pardoinne, nommé le ruby du conte, lequel ruby elle connoist bien, et vueil qu’aprez mon decez et le sien, lesdits balay et ruby demourent à nostre ainsné fils et à ses successeurs qui seront contes de Flandres’. See Bernard and Henri Prost, Inventaires mobiliers et extraits des comptes des ducs de Bourgogne de la maison de Valois (1363-1477), II. Philippe le Hardi, 1378-1390 (Paris -), p. , no. .
10
victor m. schmidt
. Late fifteenth-century copy of a lost portrait of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy (original by Johan Maelwael). Paris, Musée du Louvre.
Thus, the ring held by John in his portrait very likely refers to the taking possession of the duchy in , and also offers an approximate date of the execution of the original. The attribution of this original to Maelwael, which was recently defended again by Philippe Lorentz, seems obvious, because also under John the Fearless Maelwael remained the prime ducal painter in Dijon. Typologically, the portrait represents an important development from the format of the only known French independent portrait from the fourteenthcentury, that of king John the Good in the Louvre, datable to a period shortly before his access to the throne in . The duke’s portait is half-length, whereas that of the king is en buste. In both cases, the sitters are represented in strict profile, which may seem obvious, as a fair number of early painted
Ph. Lorentz, ‘Les peintres de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur à Dijon’, in: L’art à la cour de Bourgogne. Le mécénat de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur (1364-1419) (Paris ), pp. -, in part. p. . In her entry for the portrait in the same catalogue (p. , no. ), Sophie Jugie rejects the attribution of the original to Maelwael. Musée du Louvre, inv. no. RF . See Ch. Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, 13001500, vol. (Paris ), pp. -, no. .
some portraits by johan maelwael
11
portraits are represented in the same fashion. However, when such profile heads appear as pictorial elements in other contexts, such as manuscript illuminations, they are quite conspicuous in respect to other figures, which are usually rendered in a three-quarter profile. I suspect that many a profile head of an important contemporary figure in manuscript illuminations eventually goes back to a painted portrait, be it a portrait on panel or one on paper, such as the splendid portrait of Louis II d’Anjou in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, now attributed to Barthélemy d’Eyck. A case in point is the well-known image of Jean de Berry in the calendar page of January in the Très Riches Heures (illus. ). It has all the characteristics of a portrait ‘pasted in’: the duke’s head appears in strict profile, it is considerably larger than that of the other figures in the scene, and the way the arms are joined to the bust is slightly awkward. Interestingly, in the Gaignières Collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France there is a drawing of a half-length portrait of the duke in profile but with a different position of the arms. Whether or not the original should be attributed to the Limbourg brothers, as Meiss suggests, the drawing does seem to reflect a contemporary portrait of the duke. There are two instances of portraits of John the Fearless in illuminated manuscripts which likewise seem to be adaptations of an existing portrait: the duke is shown in profile and with exactly the same precious gesture of the hand as in the original supposedly painted by Maelwael. Particularly the presentation miniature by the Mazarine Master on f. of the Livre des merveilles (illus. ) demonstrates that the figure of the duke, here represented in mirror image, must have been based on the painted portrait, because the adaptation to the new context is not quite successful: the duke is holding his ring, although at the same time he is accepting a large book offered to him by Jean Hayton.
F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520 (Paris ), no. ; see also M. Meiss, French painting in the time of Jean de Berry. The late fourteenth century and the patronage of the duke (London, etc. ), p. and ill. ; M. Meiss, The Limbourgs and their contemporaries (New York ), pp. , , -, and ill. . Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Cabinet des Estampes, Collection Gaignières, Oa Rés., f. . See Meiss, op. cit. (n. : ), pp. -, , and ill. ; Meiss, op. cit. (n. : ), p. , and ill. . For the manuscript (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. ), see most recently M.-Th. Gousset, in: L’art à la cour de Bourgogne, op. cit. (n. ), p. , no. . The other portrait of John the Fearless with the same precious gesture, is included in the presentation miniature in a manuscript of Pierre Salmon’s Dialogues from (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. , f. ). For the manuscript, see most recently I. Villela-Petit, in: Paris 1400. Les arts sous Charles VI (Paris ), pp. -, no. ; for a colour reproduction of the miniature, see L’art à la cour de Bourgogne, op. cit., (n. ), p. .
12
victor m. schmidt
. Limbourg Brothers, January: New Year reception of Jean, duke of Berry. Très Riches Heures. Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. .
Supposing that both the attribution of the portrait of John the Fearless to Maelwael and the political meaning of the ring are correct, there is every reason to discuss a portrait of John’s father, Philip the Bold, in the context of Maelwael’s oeuvre as well. The late copy in Dijon, which is usually reproduced, is inaccurate. Both an alabaster copy from around in the same
Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, inv. no. . See M. Comblen-Sonkes, Le Musée des Beaux-Arts de Dijon, vol. (Les primitifs flamands, . Corpus de la peinture des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux au quinzième siècle, ; Brussels ), pp. - (with bibliography); Prochno,
some portraits by johan maelwael
13
. Mazarine Master, Jean Hayton offers his book to John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy. Livre des merveilles. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. , f. .
museum and an eighteenth-century engraving (illus. 6) show the duke holding a large jewel in his right hand, in a conspicuous gesture similar to that in the portrait of his son. The similarity is indeed striking and cannot be coincidental. The duke is wearing the collar of the Order of the Broom-Pod (‘Ordre de la Cosse de Genêt’). This was not a real order of knighthood but rather a honorific pseudo-order, awarded by the duke’s nephew, king Charles VI of France. The costly pendant, however, does not belong to the insignia of the
op. cit. (n. ), pp. -; S. Jugie, in: L’art à la cour de Bourgogne, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, no. (with bibliography). Prochno, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, and , ill. . For some notes on this order, see D’A.J.D. Boulton, The Knights of the Crown. The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, 1325-1520 (Woodbridge ), pp. and , and D. Gordon, Making & meaning. The Wilton diptych (London ), p. ; L. Hablot, ‘L’ordre de la Cosse de genêt de Charles VI: mise en scène d’une devise royale’, in: Revue française d’héraldique et de sillographie, - () [], pp. -.
14
victor m. schmidt
6. Copy of a lost portrait of Philip the Bold, duke of Burgundy (original by Johan Maelwael). From: Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, Thrésor des antiquitez de la Couronne de France (The Hague ).
some portraits by johan maelwael
15
order – nor of any other order, for that matter. The alabaster relief and the engraving clearly show the pendant to be a jewel with a large precious stone. It may represent the ‘large ruby’ (‘gros ruby’) Philip the Bold had acquired in for no less than , francs. This ruby, too, was to be preserved in St. Bénigne in Dijon and to be given to every new duke of Burgundy. If this is indeed correct, it would mean that the portrait was painted between , when the ruby was acquired, and , the year Philip died. Again, this time span coincides exactly with the activities of Maelwael as court painter. Both portraits have been referred to Maelwael in the past, but in more recent times the arguments for doing so have been too easily dismissed. I want to emphasize again that both portraits are clearly similar in format and iconography. The iconography is political, and related to Dijon as the capital of the duchy of Burgundy. What can be more obvious than to attribute these portraits to the ducal painter resident in Dijon, Johan Maelwael? One problem I could not solve is: what happened to the ‘large ruby’ acquired in ? It does not seem to figure among the possessions of John the Fearless inventoried in . Did it perhaps find another destination after Philip the Bold’s death? A large balas ruby called the ‘balas ruby of Flanders’ is mentioned in an inventory of Charles the Bold drawn up after his death in , but it is unlikely that the same stone is meant, since the administrators responsible for such inventories must have been able to distinguish a ruby from a balas ruby. Although the iconography of the portrait of Philip the Bold links it to Dijon, the portrait, like that of his son, must have been known in Paris as well. A reflection of it is to be seen in a well-known miniature by the Bedford
Comblen-Sonkes, op. cit. (n. ), p. suggests a connection between the pendant and the Order of the Passion of Christ, a chevalric order created by the duke in . The wording of the payment is as follows: ‘A Anthoine Gentil, marchant, demourant à Gennes, auquel a esté paié et baillié et delivré du commande et ordonnance de mondit seigneur la somme de XVM frans a leuy deue pour la vendue et delivrance d’un gros ruby, que icelle monseigneur fist prenre et achetter de lui ledit pois lequel ruby icell monseigneur apres son trespas a entencion d’icellui faire mettre en l’eglise de Saint Benigne en sa ville de Dijon pour le baillier au duc de Bourgoigne que apres lui succedera et aussi ensuivant chacun duc semblablement en prenre la saisine et possession de ladite duchié de Bourgoigne’. See Prochno, op. cit. (n. ), p. . The connection between the ruby in the portrait and the investiture of the dukes of Burgundy is also suggested by J.C. Smith, ‘The Chartreuse de Champmol in : the earliest visitor’s account’, in: Gazette des beaux-arts, (), pp. -, in part. p. . ‘Item, ung autre fermillet d’or, en faceon destos, deux fusilz d’or au dessus, garny d’un gros dyamant pointu à fasses, d’un gros balay appellé le balay de Flandres, une grosse perle ronde pendant embas, et deux autres longues perles en faceon de poires, pendant aux costés’. See De Laborde, op. cit. (n. ), p. , no. .
16
victor m. schmidt
Master (illus. ) in the Grandes Heures of Jean de Berry, finished in (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. , f. ). The miniature is often said to depict St Peter receiving Jean de Berry and others into Paradise, but as Roger Wieck recently pointed out it rather represents St Peter admitting the converts into church. It illustrates the sext of the Office of the Holy Spirit, which explains why St Peter is shown illuminated by the Holy Spirit. The same subject is represented in the Petites Heures and the Savoy Hours. The picture cycle illustrating the Office of the Holy Spirit in these manuscripts needs closer study than can be offered here, but a major source may be the capitula or chapters from the office itself. That of Sext is taken from the Epistle to the Romans :, which mentions the ‘Spirit of adoption as sons’, which could have suggested an image of the converted finding a new home in the Church. In the background of the miniature in the Grandes Heures Philip the Bold appears clearly recognizable in strict profile, wearing the same hat as in Maelwael’s portrait. However, it is Jean de Berry, likewise shown in strict profile, and not the duke of Burgundy who is holding a pendant before his breast. I suspect that the miniature painter, rather than copying a portrait of Jean de Berry with a pendant, transferred the gesture from Philip the Bold’s portrait to the duke of Berry. The stone is blue and may therefore represent a sapphire. Unfortunately I have been unable to find an item in the duke’s inventories as published by Jules Guiffrey that matches the representation. Nevertheless, the circumstance that copies of Philip’s portrait, as well as that of his son, circulated in Parisian illuminators’ workshops suggests that they were quite well known. If they were, they must have been publicly accessible, and that would tie in with their political iconography. In this contribution, I tried to shed some light on three portraits of the first two Valois dukes of Burgundy, the originals of which are irretrievably lost. It
Roger S. Wieck, ‘Bibliophilic jealousy and the manuscript patronage of Jean, duc de Berry’, in: Dückers and Roelofs, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, in part. p. . Cf. also Marcel Thomas, The Grandes Heures of Jean, duke of Berry, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris (New York ), pp. -. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. , f. , reproduced in Meiss, op. cit. (n. : ), illus. ; formerly Turin, Biblioteca Nazionale e Universitaria, MS E.V. , p. . ‘Non enim accepistis spiritum servitutis iterum in timore, sed accepistis spiritum adoptionis filiorum, in quo clamamus: Abba, Pater’ (‘For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, Abba! Father!’). See now Roger S. Wieck, ‘The office of the Holy Spirit in royal French books of hours’, in: Von Kunst und Temperament: Festschrift f ür Eberhard König, ed. C. Zöhl and M. Hofmann (Turnhout ), pp. -.
some portraits by johan maelwael
17
. Bedford Master, St Peter admitting the converts into church. Grandes Heures of Jean, duke of Berry. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. , f. .
may perhaps seem strange to spend so much effort on copies. Yet it should be pointed out that the originals represented the incunabula of the genre; moreover, the sitters belonged to the most powerful rulers of their time. Considering two of the portraits in the context of Maelwael’s oeuvre helps to define not only his contribution to the genre, but also the extent of his oeuvre, which has met a fate that is inversely proportional to that of his famous nephews.
The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duke of Berry Manuscript and the Question of the Artists’ ‘Hands’
Margaret Lawson*
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation, New York, USA
Introduction The extraordinarily beautiful book of hours, The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duke of Berry, c. - by the Limbourg Brothers: Herman, Paul, and Jean
* The Belles Heures by Millard Meiss and Elizabeth Beatson, George Braziller, New York, has served as an important primary source for the conservators on The Belles Heures manuscript during the examination and treatment. Meiss and Beatson attributions to the three different Limbourg brothers were included in our written documentation although they were not always personally understood. Undertaking digital infrared photography provided us with the opportunity to study the drawing hands without the distraction of color and gilding. Looking at Meiss months later, it is heartening to see that our results used similar words to describe the existence of the unique characteristics of three different hands or styles. We appear to have arrived at the same place – in some ways, a starting point. Further investigation may eventually lead to more confident individual attributions. This study is submitted with tremendous gratitude and admiration to Meiss and Beatson for their work. I would like to express my appreciation to Alison Gilchrest for digital infrared photography, Dr. Silvia Centeno for scientific analysis, and Marjorie Shelley and The Sherman Fairchild Center for Works on Paper and Photograph Conservation, with special thanks to Mary Jo Carson, Ann Baldwin, Valerie Faivre, Rachel Mustalish, and Akiko Yamazaki-Kleps for their expertise, assistance and support. Photographs are by the author, except for the digital infrared photography, which was done by Alison Gilchrest. Copyright for all of these images remains with the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The original paper shared findings made following the publication of the Limbourg exhibition catalogue. It focused on three areas: the experience of recreating The Annunciation to the Shepherds folio from the Belles Heures using historically appropriate methods and materials: the question of the artists’ hands, and areas for future investigation including unresolved issues with scribal inscriptions and materials. One year later, providing a corrected ‘Table of the Breakdown of the Quires in The Belles Heures’, to replace the problematic version in the exhibition catalog seems most important. As Rob Dückers presented material on making a reconstruction in the Limbourg Brothers Documentary, (best presented in visual format), the first section of the talk
20
margaret lawson
from Nijmegen, Guelders was commissioned by the Duke of Berry (), one of the greatest collectors of all time. Belonging to the Department of Medieval Art and the Cloisters at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, it is one of the great treasures of the western world. What can be said about the working hands of the artists who created The Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duke of Berry manuscript? Absolute answers as to who drew and or painted
on the reconstruction was eliminated. I would simply urge people who are drawn to medieval materials and techniques to study treatises and try a reconstruction themselves as a most rewarding process. See also The Limbourg Brothers: Nijmegen Masters at the French Court, -, ed. Rob Dückers and Pieter Roelofs (Gent ), pp. -; William D.Wixom & Margaret Lawson, Picturing the Apocalypse: ‘Illustrated Leaves from a Medieval Spanish Manuscript’, in: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, Winter , pp. -. For information on Medieval techniques and materials. For a th century treatise read Cennino d’Andrea Cennini, The Crafsman’s Handbook, “Il Libro dell’Arte”, transl. by Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. (New York ). Consult bibliographies for additional treatises. For material supplies, consult Kremer Pigmente, Aichstetten, Germany and New York, NY. From: http://www.kremer-pigmente.de/englisch/ home.htm. Finally, Scribal inscriptions found in the spine-fold and discussed in the third part of the talk have been found to relate to the text and rubrics.
The structure of the manuscript. The Belles Heures of Jean of France, Duke of Berry Pol, Jean and Herman de Limbourg, Paris or Bourges, c. -/ The Metropolitan Museum of Art, NY The Cloisters Collection,
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
21
miniatures or parts of paintings in the Belles Heures cannot be known, but it became apparent that there were three recognizable styles or artists’ hands in the miniatures when digital infra-red photographs were reviewed during the process of examination, documentation and conservation of the manuscript. This preliminary investigation provides examples of the three ‘hands’ or styles recognized in digital infra-red photographs, offers examples of magnified painting details to support stylistic observations, and describes problems and questions related to the making and interpretation of the Belles Heures miniatures. Closer study of the digital infra-red photographs suggested that although there were three individual styles, more than one style or hand might be evident on a page and it was sometimes impossible to distinguish one from another. The painting techniques in the Belles Heures required more study beyond existing examination and scientific analysis of materials performed to understand the relationship between the underdrawing and the finished miniatures. This investigation utilizes microscopy for careful visual observations of all the miniatures, and the documentation tools of digital infra-red photography and photomicrography, as a means to study the techniques and evidence of styles used by the Limbourg Brothers in the Belles Heures. Medieval workshops thrived on the contributions of many artists, from scribes to gilders to illuminators, to painters. With design layout in place, one painter could finish the painting, or the task could be shared. For that matter, a more gifted artist could collaborate in a layout when a specific skill was required. In close cooperative efforts, unique contributions can come from all parties involved. Evidence of individual participation may be discernable. The young Limbourg Brothers, close in age, were reaching new artistic achievements in the areas of perspective, landscape painting and figural composition. While combined creative efforts sometimes surpass the unique in the individual and result in a completely new style or approach, the tools here may enable some observations to be made. For all of us who remain cautious in defining the Limbourg brothers styles, perhaps one day ‘fingerprints’ or individual qualities of the three brothers can be more closely determined with more advanced techniques.
Dückers and Roelofs, op. cit. (n.), pp. -. Infra-red is the region of the electromagnetic spectrum, longer than visible light and shorter than microwave. Infra-red photography allows one to see below the paint film. Photomicrography, a photograph of a magnified image, in this case the photograph is taken through the microscope to record details as they are observed with the microscope. Such as computer enhanced analyzed fractal geometry utilizing the Mandelbrot equation which enables the study of complex pattern characteristics, see also Richard P. Taylor, ‘Order in Pollock’s Chaos’, in: Scientific American, December , pp. -.
22
margaret lawson
. Folio v., photomicrograph of upper right figure’s head. The detail reveals underdrawing in the folds of the sleeve and the face. (Note: this and all photomicrographs are with lowest power on the microscope, at ca. x.)
Underdrawing and ‘The Hands’ In many miniatures, underdrawing can be seen below the existing paint layer without magnification (illus. -). Small areas of loss and unpainted designs indicate that layout methods are not consistent as examples of both metalpoint and dilute ink pen lines can be seen. To study the underdrawing, miniature paintings were documented using digital infra-red photography in the range of - nm. The flash with a fraction of a second exposure was preferable to the heat of tungsten lamps often used for infra-red reflectography. Infrared images permit one to see beneath the paint layer. Information in infrared images is not always clear, obvious, or easy to understand. Dilute or organic
Examples of underdrawing were submitted to in-situ X-Ray Fluorescence Spectroscopy and Raman spectroscopy for non-destructive analysis but the materials were below the detection limit of both techniques under the experimental conditions used, most likely due to the minute amounts present in available sites for study, Dr Silvia Centeno. Digital infra-red photographs by Alison Gilchrest using a Kodak DCSIR camera and strobe flash, taken in the range of - nm.
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
23
. Folio , photomicrograph of robe, center area. The underdrawing delineation can be seen in the curving lines of the garment and the right side of the staff.
inks may not be visible; carbonaceous material as a component in painting materials may be mistaken for underdrawing and or may obscure underdrawing below. The digital infrared photographs showed the existence of fairly complete underdrawing for figures in some illuminations but very sketchy indications in others. Layout methods are not consistent. An unexpected advantage of examining the infrared images was the absence of the strong unifying aspect provided by the brilliant medieval palette. The three different styles or ‘hands’ of the artists were noticed when looking through the infrared photographs to see if there were design changes in underdrawing.
Painting All the miniatures were carefully studied under the microscope. To aid in evaluating the artists hands as shown by their individual painting methods, photomicrographs of painting details were taken using lowest magnification
24
margaret lawson
for clarity in depth of field. This project has begun with about digital images including details from every quire, documenting a variety of heads, figures, hands, and landscape features. Small -/ × cm. images proved ideal for direct comparison of painted images and painting techniques. It might have been simpler to begin with a small specific category like angels, trees, or depictions of Christ, but the initial plan was to obtain an overview to study in conjunction with digital infrared photographs. The project has evolved as a work in progress and is by nature, a very subjective study. This paper reports on observations made on ‘the hands’ as expressed in both underdrawing layout and painting techniques in the Belles Heures. Following are a selection of both digital infrared photographs of miniatures and photomicrographs of painted details that demonstrate the characteristics for the proposed styles or hands. The first folio described in each group is the one that epitomizes the style. Additional selections seem to confirm the results. The ‘Drawing Hand’ In the underdrawing for f. v., Christ Nailed to the Cross, the artist’s hand can be characterized as being in constant motion (illus. ). The line keeps moving and adjusting, defining, and refining. There is a struggle to position the figure in the mid-front. The composition is complicated. There is great attention to detail: drapery folds are sketched, there are wrinkles in leggings, as well as textures, shading in the upper grass, and modulation of lights and darks. The detail of Christ’s crown, visible as underdrawing, shows as pentimento in the miniature, but was not painted. This brother can be said to have a ‘drawing hand’. Each figure in this action scene, f. r., The Flagellation, is captured in a unique pose (illus. ). Arms are extended in different directions and clothing styles vary. Attention is given to distinctive details from different kinds of garments, to different kinds of whips in hands, to a variety of hats and turbans. The figures fill the space from left to right. The drama of action is captured, but the scene feels static or frozen in time. The information in the digital infrared photograph for f. v., Death of Christ (illus. ), looks fuzzy and rough or thin compared with other hands. Close examination indicates the ‘drawing hand’ artist uses fine linear, engraving-like lines in painting as well as underdrawing. The photomicrograph detail of f. v., Death of Christ, with Christ’s arm and head and part of the cross, shows diagonal lines shading the sky (illus. ). Diagonal strokes of flesh tone and dark blue-gray on Christ’s arm and face gives three-dimensionality to the outlined figure. Christ’s hair is defined with loose brown
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
25
. Folio v., digital infrared photograph. Evidence of the ‘drawing hand’ is supplied by the numerous sketched lines found throughout for placement and a great attention to the definition of details.
26
margaret lawson
. Folio , digital infrared photograph. The scene portrays action with figures captured in static positions. This and attention to details suggest the ‘drawing hand.’
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
27
. Folio v., digital infrared photograph. The general sketchiness in layout indicates the ‘drawing hand.’
28
margaret lawson
. Folio v., photomicrograph of Christ’s head. Accomplished in a linear manner (like engraving) with the brush used more as a drawing tool rather than for painting, this miniature suggests the work of a ‘drawing hand.’
linear strokes. The entire image is created by lines above a dull gray-blue toned background. A detail from f. v., Martyrdom of Eleven Thousand Virgins, provides different information (illus. ). The metal helmet and sword are painted with a blue outline. The interior is filled in with a lighter wash of the same with rough parallel lines to shade the armor elements, characteristic of the ‘drawing hand.’ The garment of the fighter, not including descriptive detail is filled with a thin field of light green. Color for this artist is not used to create forms; it is used for accent delineation. In the small miniature f. r., David’s Enemies Destroyed, the armor is again outlined with blue (illus. ). Pink above the fallen figure is modeled with vertical red strokes and yellow parts are modeled with tan lines. Outlines of the armor are the strongest element. Within the armor, modeling continues with parallel strokes and some crosshatching of the outline color. The exposed chest of the dead knight has slightly curved parallel brown lines over the blue base to provide form to the figure. Grass is modeled with darker green diagonal strokes over lighter green. Modeling is primarily linear. Faces, in the ‘drawing hand’ with the more physically violent actions of the scenes, are often angry,
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
29
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail of center figure. The color is not used to create forms but to accent delineation of the armor, a characteristic of the ‘drawing hand.’
scowling or expressing uglier emotions, such as the figure from f. v., Christ Mocked (see illus. ). The lips are bright red lines. The color acts as an accent to delineate the lower face. With the same red, smaller fine red almost scribbled lines shade the lower cheeks.
The ‘Painterly Hand’ The approach of the artist in f. v., The Lamentation, is more sculptural than linear (illus. ). Figures are soft, rounded, glowing, buttery – more like the fresco painting of Giotto or Fra Angelico. Details are limited. Layout lines and contrast appear soft and there is a sense of light, mass and gentleness. This approach can be described as a ‘painterly hand.’ The white mass of figures in f. r., Entering the Grande Chartreuse (illus. ), seems sensitively carved. The group has a marble-like weight and substance. There is a whispered quiet to the composition. The infrared does not show rough sketchiness, or distraction of details. Even the landscape from foreground green grass to the darker green background hills is smooth in transition and without details. The sense of
30
margaret lawson
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of lower left. The definition of all parts is strongly linear and modeling is linear indicating the ‘drawing hand.’
movement is quiet, hushed, reserved. The figures have weight and mass as does the castle in f. r., End of the Plague (illus. ). Although there are two separate groups of figures, as in r, they are connected by the castle in the background and the extended arm from the left. The only linear detail added in the painting is straps on the legs of the left figure. The centered angel in the extension above adds lightness to the weight of the composition with the castle and figures below. A variety of fluid, facile brushstrokes result in a luminous handling of the garment for the figure in the foreground, f. r., End of the Plague (illus. ). The ‘painterly hand’ speaks with the paint and paintbrush and solidly renders surface, form and light. Gestures can be gentle, bearings of figures is solid, and painterly effects can range from imaginative as in the image of heads burning, (illus. ) f. r., St. Catherine Confounding the Doctors to the lightness of air as seen in (illus. )
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
31
. Folio v., digital infrared photograph. A more serene sculptural modeling with few details suggests the ‘painterly hand.’
32
margaret lawson
. Folio r., digital infrared photograph. The sense of volume, weight and substance achieved in sculptural modeling with drawing relate to the ‘painterly hand.’
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
33
. Folio , digital infrared photograph. There is a softness, roundness, and sense of volume to the complex figural groupings that feels characteristic of the ‘painterly hand.’
34
margaret lawson
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of mid-bottom figure. The fluid brushstrokes rendering form with a glow of light are associated with the ‘painterly hand.’
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of heads burning lower left. The simplicity of the unusual subject matter demonstrates the high level of creative brushwork displayed by the ‘painterly hand.’
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
35
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of distant landscape left of center. The fresh, light-filled, almost watercolor loose brushstrokes show off the ‘painterly hand.’
f. r., The Annunciation to the Shepherds. The ‘painterly hand’ has apparent ease and total control of the paint and paintbrush. Subjects are enhanced with glowing color and light and the landscape background view is fresh and light filled. Faces can look monumentally simple. Heads are shown at many different angles, for example (illus. ) in f. v., Procession of Flagellants, the head is tipped back. The ‘painterly hand’ artist has an awareness and capability of using foreshortening. Hands are drawn with facility. A gesture repeated several times is the crossed arms, with hands that are graceful and protective, from f. with the Virgin, to St. Catherine, f. v., to Christ in St. John Baptizing Christ, f. v. Other examples of hands show strength of a grip or grasping arm, or the limpness of death, or consolation.
The ‘Elegant Hand’ In f. v., Saint Jerome’s Dream, the digital infrared image shows that forms are exaggerated and lines are lyrical (illus. ). In the underdrawing, the wings of the angels are rearranged, creating more movement. God’s seat is drawn, but not painted, and – most striking – the figures are elongated. The body of
36
margaret lawson
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail of figure’s head, second from right. The unusual stance with foreshortening in the position of the head and facile rich painting strokes distinguish the ‘painterly hand.’
Jerome, dreaming at the bottom, seems to keep extending. God the Father has a very long torso and the bent figure in the upper left has an awkward mass. There is a slight tension where the shapes touch the border edges, yet the overall result is refined and elegant. The miniature is composed of separate elements but within each part there is a feeling of movement. Separate components or disconnected elements in f. v., The Sick at St. Jerome’s Funeral, (illus. ), exhibit a circular movement within themselves. Figures seem to be pulled or growing out of the landscape; they elongate and extend. There is an elegant line to drapery, and a general feeling of an organic rhythm and motion even in the background. Elegant, curving lines describe the figures and the landscape in f. r., St. Paul’s Soul transported by Angels (illus. ). The angels and mountains create a pattern of repetition. In the sparseness, there is almost a musicality to the lines. Even the shape of the boat creates a circular flow. As in other examples of the ‘elegant hand’ there are separate components in the composition and movement within elements. The diagonals in the composition keep the eye moving.
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
37
. Folio v., digital infrared photograph. The design changes of the wings upper left creates a less static arrangement. The elongated figures, and a sense of circular movement within the individual groupings, are characteristic of the ‘elegant hand.’
38
margaret lawson
. Folio v., digital infrared photograph. A stirred sense of motion is felt within parts of the drawing. There are separate units within the composition, and some figures to the right seem to be elongated. These qualities are associated with the ‘elegant hand.’
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
39
. Folio , digital infrared photograph. The repetition of shapes and lines, separate elements within the composition, and the elongated cloaked figure speak of the ‘elegant hand.’
40
margaret lawson
In the small miniature, f. r., St. Christopher and the Christ Child, St. Christopher’s garment is defined by changing and moving curvilinear lines. Only the Christ Child seems solid and centered on the Saint’s back. All other parts have a circular flow or feel of motion. As in the underdrawing, an elegant moving line is also incorporated in the painting technique. In the detail of the St. Jerome’s robe, f. v. St. Jerome’s Dream (illus. ), the modeling lines are not straight but flowing and refined. Gradual transitions of warm to cool tones of under color are employed below the long graceful warm brown lines. These delineating brown modeling lines are not parallel but curve gently. Arms and shoulders do not always seem to fit due to exaggeration of parts of figures. Sometimes the shoulders are extremely narrow as for God on f. v. Sometimes one or both sides may feel overly large as for the small miniature, f. r., St Christopher and the Christ Child (see illus. ). A detail of St Christopher’s draped shawl shows underdrawing below the surface and graceful movements to the lines that wrap the figure. Interestingly, the rose color is applied with a variety of brushstrokes: some painterly lighter strokes, more gently curved darker lines and some close vertical darker pink lines below the arm, but the resulting feeling is one of movement. Exaggerated parts of figures make for
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail of St Jerome’s garment mid-bottom. The graceful curvilinear longer lines and the gentle small strokes that softly model the form, create a fluid sense of movement over the area, – evidence of the ‘elegant hand.’
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
41
pleasing lines and movement but proportions sometimes feel clumsy as for example in another small miniature, f. v., David Rebuked by the Prophet Nathan (illus. ). Both arms feel awkward; the raised arm looks as if it originates below the shoulder, and the other arm seems short.
Fourth Group: Others The examples provided generally suggest a particular hand, but an attempt to sort all the infrared images by styles failed. The result was three small groups where images generally fit the described styles and a large undecided and conflicted fourth group of miniatures best characterized by mixed messages, uncertainties and or doubts. The problem was that even if one style was recognized, the miniatures often combined qualities or shared something that also suggested or made it difficult to differentiate one hand from another hand. What provokes doubt or confusion about the artists’ hands? With repeated review the sense is that combinations of stylistic elements do exist within miniatures. Perhaps the artists were evolving so quickly, that they were adapting
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail mid-left. The way the arm comes out of the body is awkward and the figure seems elongated in the miniature. These are characteristics of the ‘elegant hand.’
42
margaret lawson
the skills and sensitivities of each other. Their talents and spirits were melding. Working together for about three years on this manuscript, they were all reaching new levels of achievement. The brothers appear to have been positively challenged by working for their patron, the Duke of Berry. Most likely they were also exposed to the finest artists and craftsmen of the time, and saw their work, providing more sources of inspiration.
Questions, Considerations and Observations An example of how the cooperative efforts might easily be incorporated can be seen in f. r., Institution of the Great Litany, (most like the ‘painterly hand’), that suggests a fresco-like format in that it is composed of separate units similar to ‘giornate’ that could each be addressed as autonomous units. There is a large rounded group in the foreground that could be one ‘giornata’. The figures at the right edge could be another unit, and the triangular group of smaller heads that fits between these two another. The left arch and figures inside could form another. Focusing on individual elements within other compositions one begins to see how different hands could quietly contribute to a single composition. As simple as having different hands add heads or a figure or two at the edge, or the background, one creates a greater feeling of unity in the prayer-book. The quality of the paintings and design elements in the miniatures exhibits a wide range of skill or finesse. Many factors contribute to the final appearance of the miniature in addition to the artists’ hands. One must ask many questions. What if anything is the relationship between the underdrawing and the painting? Is it possible that one artist might have done the underdrawing, or parts of it and another the painting? Was it one artist for a miniature, or quire, or subject matter, or did they often combine efforts on a page? Supposing there was a model book or pre-existing design they were following and drawings were copied from this – what then about the hands? Would the Limbourg brothers lose some individual character in depicting the layout of another hand? This study focuses on the Belles Heures. To do a complete study, comparisons should also be made with the earlier Bible Moralisée to study the quality of underdrawing, development in skills, and to track previously used layouts for evolution in The Belles Heures. Similarly, one needs to look to the later, more completely evolved extremely fine work, The Très Riches Heures. Indeed many figures and compositional elements in the Belles Heures, are recognizable in The Très Riches Heures.
Ms Fr. in the collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris. Ms in the collection of the Musée Condé, Chantilly.
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
43
Due to the characteristics of the parchment support, the quality of the work from the same hand might appear different depending on the side of the skin being used. Painting on the flesh, (smooth side of the skin), (illus. ) tends to look more creamy smooth or enamel-like. Miniscule details are possible with a fine brush and perfectly ground pigment on the slick surface of the flesh side support. Paintings on the nap or hair side (illus. ) have a velvety matte surface. The texture of the skin makes it difficult to apply a smooth glaze or delicate details overall, or to read too much detail. Limitations in linear description or modeling in no way diminish the quality or aesthetic achievements of the paintings on the hair side. The texture of the skin often requires a thicker application of paint, creating an added three-dimensional character to the surface of the paintings that is rich, and warm. In contemplating the issue of skin side, additional observations are worth noting. Some of the skins may be split skins. Also, a downside to the exquisiteness
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail of upper right figure. Painting on the flesh or smooth side of the skin yields an enamel-like surface to the miniature. Very crisp fine line detail work is possible.
44
margaret lawson
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of upper left figure. Painting on the textured matte side results in a velvety matte appearance. The surface has a pleasing three dimensional quality but does not accept fine crisp brushwork easily.
of the painted details on the flesh side is that there are often more significant losses – perhaps because the particulate paint film has less opportunity to bond securely or to be held or embedded in the smooth parchment fibers (illus. ). Losses in significant areas like the face and eyes frustrate the comparison of styles and interference of text from the nap side is sometimes more noticeable. Other contributing variants include action and composition, the state of the pigment mixtures and tools at the moment they were being utilized, and the amount of time allocated for the particular miniature. From trying to make a reconstruction of a miniature, it was learned that there is a fine balance between the wetness of the paint and its flow, the amount of binder, and the preliminary paint layer below that determine how effectively a brush stroke is applied over a previous layer. A few paintings appear to have been done under duress, hastily, yet others were worked through with such total involvement, tremendous affection and determination as to finish the painting in the most sublime manner possible. How details are depicted is another variable. The cloth – fabric color and fiber content for religious orders, women’s clothing, the king’s clothes, armor, all vary in construction, detail and
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
45
. Folio , photomicrograph detail showing flaked losses to paint layer on the flesh side. Due to the slick surface, the pigment particle attachment to the parchment support is less secure.
description and are depicted differently. Similarly, facial expressions, skin tonality, dead bodies vs. young ladies, old men, angry or gentle, vary in how they are indicated. It requires close study to determine if it is different hands that shade or model material or skin in different ways or if it is the subject matter that elicits the different approach. Color selection and sensitivity might depend partially on the scenery, background, and characters involved, but also on the individual hand. The choice of pigment and techniques for painting a face and various parts in manuscripts come out of tradition, but these artists were going beyond traditional ways to new levels. One of the first observations made looking at the photomicrograph details was that f. , The Annunciation, looked very porcelain-like and different. Unique to this painting, both Gabriel and the Virgin have ultramarine blue eyes. From photomicrograph details, St Genevieve is the only other blue-eyed figure found in the manuscript. All the other Virgins and all other figures appear to have brown eyes. The abundant use of the extremely valuable pigment ultramarine for the eyes as well as the border, the modeling of Gabriel’s garment, and the Virgin’s robe on f. is in keeping with the great importance
46
margaret lawson
given to the event and the page. The original format would have made it the first page in the prayer-book. The blue eyes retain a harmony in the design. Thereafter, figures could be depicted with brown eyes, which might be a money saving decision, but brown pigment was already on the paintbrush to delineate details of the face, nose and eyebrows and figural outlines. Painting brown eyes would be a natural continuation in the use of the brush and a harmonizing feature to the design in the folios that followed. The more that infrared images, photomicrographs and miniature paintings are studied, the more complicated the information becomes. Looking carefully, it is possible to see that smaller contributions are probably made consistently within the framework of the individual folios. Yet the recognizable spirits remain of the individual artists whispered throughout. F. r., Diocrés expounding the Scriptures, provides an example where the hand appears to change character in the midst of painting (illus. ). The magenta-rose cloth draping down from the shoulder and arm is well defined, modeled from light
. Folio , photomicrograph detail of second figure from lower right edge. The garment shows different painting techniques within the pink robe: linear hard edge modeling upper section, loose, soft, less defined below, and blue with fine darker lines upper left.
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
47
to dark and strongly outlined. In the seated area below, the brushstrokes change abruptly and become soft and much less defining. This could be a logical solution to conveying the difference in how the fabric appears, or it could be a shared area to paint. There are also examples where figures and faces are not consistent. For example, in the Catherine Cycle, f. r (illus. ), the King has a specific, hardened and disgruntled look, and r the King has a softer, kinder, more generalized quality (illus. ). Under study is the thought that contributions may have come from all the brothers on this quire with quiet variations in faces, hands, modeling and the forms of figures and backgrounds, but it is not simple. Also interesting are the very specific faces in f. v., The Duke on a Journey, (illus. ) with the figure in green that looks at the king but also seems to catch the viewer’s eye. The circular movement in the composition with the horses speaks of the ‘elegant hand,’ and the massive, solid castles suggest the ‘painterly hand’.
. Folio , photomicrograph detail upper right, hard faced king (may be due to skin side).
48
margaret lawson
. Folio , photomicrograph detail, softer faced king (may be due to skin side).
. Folio v., photomicrograph detail of faces upper right edge where one almost seems to question us.
the BELLES HEURES OF JEAN DE FRANCE, DUKE OF BERRY manuscript
49
Conclusion Obviously there are many unanswered questions. This is a preliminary inquiry. The issue of ‘hands’ is extremely complex but the details are fascinating. Further research is necessary and perhaps more scientific analysis, possibly by methods that we are not yet familiar with at this time. Perhaps we are not meant to know, but asking questions and making observations are important. Most likely, the investigation process will be ongoing and challenging. Results will need refining over the years to come as scholars and laymen alike continue to both be made curious and astonished by the extraordinary work and breathtaking beauty of this treasured book of hours. One idea that has surfaced constantly during this project is that perhaps the individual ego of today is not as positive, but potentially counterproductive. We are by nature limited in how much one can accomplish. When skilled efforts are positively combined in a project, how much more is possible! Collaboration might be a better method of addressing these problems. The collaborative efforts of the Limbourg Brothers achieved something far greater than any one was capable of accomplishing on their own. The message in their work is clear. Join together, accept unique gifts in each person, and combine the best ideas (from the head, heart and hand) with the best in others. The gift to the world is far greater. When the journey is over, it does not really matter which brother did what at that time, but that they achieved amazing brilliance together that endures for all the ages.
Likeness, Loyalty, and the Life of the Court Artist: Portraiture in the Calendar Scenes of the Très Riches Heures
Stephen Perkinson
Bowdoin College, Brunswick, Maine, USA
Introduction: Portraiture in the Très Riches Heures Painted by the Limbourg Brothers between 111 and 11, the calendar miniatures of the Très Riches Heures of duke Jean de Berry have entranced both art historians and the broader public with their seeming ability to provide a transparent window onto daily life in the late Middle Ages.1 Recent scholarship has, of course, gently reminded us that these miniatures depict ‘daily life’ as seen from a particular point of view – that of their aristocratic patron, Jean de Berry. Nonetheless, it is easy to be captivated by these meticulously rendered images. The calendar sequence is extraordinary in its format and scale. Whereas the calendars of earlier Books of Hours were either unillustrated or decorated with diminutive images, the Très Riches Heures devotes entire folios to scenes for each month. But the calendar images are also exceptional in their degree of personalization. A year before he acquired the manuscript in 1, the Duke d’Aumale had already recognized the face of Jean de Berry himself in the midst of the banquet, the traditional scene for January (illus. 1). Subsequent scholars have unanimously followed his identification, and for good reason. The figure’s features – its blunt nose and paunchy cheeks – resemble those ascribed to the
Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , ff. v.-v. J.J.G. Alexander, ‘Labeur and Paresse: Ideological Representations of Medieval Peasant Labor’, in: Art Bulletin‚ (), pp. -; M. Camille, ‘The Très Riches Heures: An Illuminated Manuscript in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction’, in: Critical Inquiry‚ (), pp. -; ibid., ‘“For Our Devotion and Pleasure”: The Sexual Objects of Jean, Duc de Berry’, in Art History‚ (), pp. -. The Duke d’Aumale, Chantilly: Le cabinet des livres: manuscrits, vol. (Paris ), p. ; quoted in translation by R. Cazelles, Illuminations of Heaven and Earth: The Glories of the ‘Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry’ (New York ), p. .
52
stephen perkinson
duke in other images (for instance, in a miniature that the Limbourgs painted in around 11 for insertion into his Petites Heures, illus. ). But the duke’s identity is also verified by the fact that he sits beneath a canopy emblazoned with his coat of arms and with a pair of animals that he adopted as his symbols: the bear and the swan. The same beasts also cavort atop the golden salt cellar in front of the duke.
. The Limbourg Brothers, January, from the Très Riches Heures, /- (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , fol. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. ; The Limbourg Brothers: Nijmegen Masters at the French Court, -, ed. R. Dückers & P. Roelofs (Gent ), cat. no. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
53
. The Limbourg Brothers, The Duke of Berry departing on pilgrimage, from the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry, c. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS lat. , f. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern])
Jean de Berry is not the only figure to receive distinctive facial features in January, however. The bodies in the crowd pressing toward the Duke display a vast range of facial structures and hairstyles. Their diversity has prompted several scholars to consider the possibility that there are additional portraits of individuals embedded within this particular scene; in recent years, these attempts to identify portraits have broadened their scope to include the figures
54
stephen perkinson
appearing in the three other calendar scenes with aristocratic subjects, those for April, May, and August (illus. , , and ). Perhaps significantly, these four miniatures are all painted on two bifolios of the first gathering in the manuscript, and all four have been attributed to the same artist. Millard Meiss boldly identified that artist as Jean de Limbourg, the brother to whom he ascribed illuminations displaying a predilection for shallow, almost planar spatial settings and a lyrical, linear elegance. Taking a more cautious approach, Raymond Cazelles identified the painter of these scenes simply as ‘Limbourg B’. The effort to identify additional portraits began in earnest with Paul Durrieu’s groundbreaking 1 monograph on the manuscript. Durrieu noted with approval that the Duke d’Aumale had perceived the figure of Jean de Berry in the January scene; reiterating that conlusion, he described the image as a ‘portrait pris sur le vif ’ and vouched for its ‘absolute resemblance’. But Durrieu was also particularly drawn to the figure of a man wearing a floppy gray cap who appears in the crowd to the left of the Duke. He identified the man as one of the Limbourgs, most likely Paul who was already understood to have been the artistic leader of the three brothers. Finally, he identified the prelate seen approaching the Duke as Martin Gouge, an individual closely connected to the duke who held both episcopal and political offices. Scholars soon extended the scope of proposed portrait identifications in the January image. By the time of a 1 monograph by Raymond Cazelles and Jean Longnon, scholars largely took it for granted that many of the figures in the miniature were intended as portraits that would have been recognizable to their original audience. Cazelles and Lognon, for instance, accepted most of Durrieu’s identifications, and added their own, suggesting that the partially obscured figure with the blue head-covering behind the supposed Paul could be his wife, Gillette de Mercier, and that another figure guzzling from a hanap might be another of the brothers, either Jean or Herman. A few years later, Meiss was more cautious in his approach to the scene, noting with skepticism Durrieu’s proposed identification of Paul and concluding that ‘[n]one of the figures around the Duke has been convincingly
M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries, vol. (New York ), pp. -. Cazelles, op. cit (n. ), pp. -. P. Durrieu, Les Très Riches Heures de Jean de France, duc de Berry (Paris ), pp. -. R. Cazelles & J. Longnon, The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry (New York ), commentary for Pl. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
55
. The Limbourg Brothers, April, from the Très Riches Heures, /- (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
56
stephen perkinson
. The Limbourg Brothers, May, from the Très Riches Heures, /- (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
57
. The Limbourg Brothers, August, from the Très Riches Heures, /- (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
58
stephen perkinson
identified’. But Meiss’s circumspect attitude towards the identification of figures in the January scene sets him apart from many other scholars who have investigated the book. Durrieu himself wrote of the ‘seductive’ temptation to identify further portraits amidst the faces in the calendar pages, but in the end he regretfully concluded that any such identifications would be ‘a pure hypothesis’.10 Nevertheless, subsequent generations of art historians were far less hesitant to offer their hypothetical identifications. They have been particularly quick to discern portraits in the scenes for April, May, and August. More specifically, several scholars have proposed that some of these scenes served as visual records of important events in the life of the Duke. For instance, Cazelles and Lognon proposed that April (illus. ) represented the betrothal of the Duke’s eleven-year old granddaughter, Bonne d’Armagnac, to Charles d’Orléans; Meiss treated this identification as ‘plausible but not proved’.11 Cazelles and Lognon also tentatively identified the mounted figure seen from behind in a long blue robe in May (illus. ) as the Duke himself taking part in a May Day celebration. Other scholars were still less cautious in their approach, and a few years later even Meiss would speak approvingly of the ‘often advanced’ proposal that the scene depicts a procession involving the Duke’s daughter Marie and her third husband, Jean de Bourbon.12 In 1, this impulse towards identification reached something of a high water mark with the publication of Saint-Jean Bourdin’s Analyses des Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry: Identifications des personages figurant dans le calendrier.13 Evidently a self-published work, Bourdin’s book was printed by the Viard of Dourdan, a regional French printer known primarily for their attractive editions of books treating wood-working techniques. Despite the rather thin scholarly credentials of this book, several subsequent scholars have been willing to entertain its author’s proposed identifications of portraits in the calendar scenes.14 Bourdin’s book offers the most comprehensive – and most tenuous – set of identifications of figures in January, April, May, and August;
Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Durrieu, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Durrieu himself began to succumb to the ‘seduction’, ruminating briefly but inconclusively on the possibility that some of the figures in the May scene were members of the immediate royal family; ibid. pp. -. Cazelles & Longnon, op. cit. (n. ), commentary for Pl. ; Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Ibid. S.-J. Bourdin, Analyses des ‘Très Riches Heures’ du duc de Berry: identification des personnages figurant dans le calendrier (Dourdan ). E.g., Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
59
he believed that nearly every figure in the four scenes was intended as a recognizable portrait of members of the duke’s family. If these images do indeed represent particular relations of the Duke, they would not be the only late medieval images to include multiple generations of aristocratic families depicted while engaged in courtly leisure activities. Several scholars have noted that images such as the Louvre ‘fishing party’ drawing seem to include images of specific individuals in such settings (illus. ).15 But the calendar scenes would nevertheless have been the earliest such images, and it would be at least a generation before other images included as many members of a family as Bourdin perceived in the Très Riches Heures.16
. The Fishing Party, late th-century copy of an original of c. (Paris, Musée du Louvre; Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY)
On that image, see Art from the Court of Burgundy, - (Cleveland ), cat. no. ; L. Ninane, ‘Un portrait de famille des ducs de Bavière, comte de Hollande, Zélande et Hainaut’, in: Bulletin des Musées royaux de Beaux-Arts de Belgique‚ - (-), pp. -. The Louvre drawing is believed to reproduce a lost original of c. ; see Art from the Court of Burgundy, op. cit. (n. ), cat. no. . The earliest record of such an image – in this case, a tapestry depicting Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy (d. ) and Duchess Margaret of Bavaria – appears in the c. Burgundian ducal inventory; see L. Campbell, Renaissance Portraits: European Portrait-Painting in the 14th, 15th and 16th Centuries (New Haven ), p. .
60
stephen perkinson
Of course, the presence of one or more realistic portraits in the calendar pages of the Très Riches Heures demands historical explanation. But thus far, few scholars have thought carefully about this issue. When art historians confront portraits, they tend to obsess over questions of identification, trying to pin down the identities of individuals represented by the work. In doing so, they often neglect the matter of how and why an image might represent a particular person, as Georges Didi-Huberman has noted with regard to studies of Italian Renaissance images.17 To date, scholarship on the calendar scenes has offered two possible reasons why the Limbourgs may have inserted portraits in the scenes; at times, scholars argue explicitly in favor of these explanations, but just as often, one of the explanations is simply implicit in the historical account. The first explanation holds that the calendar of the Très Riches Heures constitutes what Bourdin termed a ‘family album’ for the duke – something akin to a modern collection of wedding photographs.18 This fits in with the tendency of some observers to view the duke as a warm-hearted and enlightened patron, whose tender feelings for his offspring mirrored our own culture’s ideals of familial bonds and parental devotion. A second explanation, favored by Panofsky and others, instead sees the portraits as the byproducts of the rising tide of naturalism in the early fifteenth century. This account is arguably less anachronistic than the overtly sentimental causes advanced by the first explanation. But it still fails to be fully satisfactory, as it, in effect, defers the issue to be explained. By assuming that naturalism is a self-evidently superior form of art-making, this account of the portraits in the Très Riches Heures conforms to a teleological account of art history that has recently, and rightly, come under criticism. This essay outlines an alternative explanation for the appearance in the Très Riches Heures of one or more naturalistic portraits. In particular, it points to
G. Didi-Huberman, ‘The Portrait, the Individual, and the Singular: Remarks on the Legacy of Aby Warburg’, in: L. Syson, The Image of the Individual: Portraits in the Renaissance (London ), pp. -. Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Similarly, Cazelles and Longnon explicitly described that possibility that the scenes depict key events in the duke’s life and members of his family as a major part of the “charm” of these miniatures; Cazelles & Longnon, op. cit. (n. ), commentary for Pl. . E.g., Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), passim, and Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), passim. For critiques of these tendencies, see by L.M.J. Delaissé, review of M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Late Fourteenth Century and the Patronage of the Duke, in: Art Bulletin‚ (), pp. -; Camille, op. cit. (n. : ); id., (n. : ). For the most succinct statement of this interpretation, see E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandish Painting: Its Origin and Character (Cambridge, Massachusetts ), p. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
61
ways in which the Limbourg Brothers may have been encouraged by their courtly environment to personalize this manuscript in this particular way. In order to do so, it focuses on ways that naturalistic portraiture formed part of a broader visual language that facilitated the representation of individuals in the late Middle Ages. In addition to naturalistic portraits, that language included what Michel Pastoureau has termed ‘para-heraldic’ signs. As Pastoureau and others have noted, the late fourteenth century witnessed an ‘efflorescence’ of emblems, liveries, and devices. This essay discusses the broader context of those signs, exploring how they were used, the places they appeared, and the motivations of their makers. It concludes by pointing to ways in which that evidence can inform our understanding of the calendar scenes in the Très Riches Heures.
The ‘Architectural Portraits’ Scholars debate the extent to which the faces in the calendar scenes were intended to be recognizable, but they are certain that other features in those pages were meant to be identifiable to their courtly audience: the buildings that populate the scenes. Castles dominate the horizons of nine of the twelve calendar images. The buildings’ meticulous detail and and the distinctiveness of their architectural features suggest that the artists who painted them intended for viewers to recognize them as specific buildings. Following on those visual cues, Erwin Panofksy described them as ‘architectural portraits’. Art historians consistently agree on the identities of seven of these: the Château of Lusignan for March, the Palais de la Cité in Paris for June, the Château du Clain in Poitiers for July, the Château of Etampes in August (illus. ), the Louvre in Paris for September, and the Château of Vincennes outside Paris in December. Most scholars identify the small castle seen in April as the Château of Dourdan (illus. ), although in his most recent study of the piece Cazelles was less certain, suggesting that it might instead depict the Château of Pierrefonds. Finally, considerable uncertainty surrounds the identity of the
M. Pastoureau, ‘L’effervescence emblématique et les origines héraldiques du portrait au XIVe siècle’, in: Bulletin de la Société nationale des Antiquaires de France‚ (), pp. -. Panofsky, op. cit. (n. ), p. . For these identifications, see Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), pp. , , and . For this identification, see Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. , and, most recently, P. Stirnemann et al., Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry et l’enluminure en France au début du XV e siècle (Chantilly ), p. ; cf. Cazelles, op. cit. (n.), p. .
62
stephen perkinson
rooftops visible over the tops of the trees in May (illus. ). In , G. Papertiant proposed that the roofs were those of Paris. Two years later, Edmond Morand asserted that the skyline matched that of the town of Riom. Bourdin accepted Morand’s claim, and Cazelles’s most recent work is agnostic on the question, but most other scholars have followed Papertiant, accepting that the scene is meant to be understood as unfolding just outside of Paris. Two other distinctive structures appear elsewhere in the Très Riches Heures. The Château of Mehun-sur-Yevre serves as the setting for the Temptation of Christ illustrating the Mass for the first Sunday in Lent. The abbey at Mont SaintMichel rises from its tidal flat while St. Michael battles a dragon in the sky above in the miniature marking the opening of the Mass for that saint’s feast day. Nearly all of those sites were associated in some manner with Jean de Berry. The châteaux at Lusignan, Dourdan, Poitiers, and Etampes were owned directly by the duke (although in late and early Dourdan and Etampes were held by partisans of Berry’s rivals, the dukes of Burgundy and Guyenne). Mehun-sur-Yevre was owned by the Duke until , when he offered it as a gift to Louis de Guyenne, the dauphin. The sites in and around Paris – the Palais de la Cité, the Louvre, and the Château of Vincennes – were of course owned by the Duke’s royal nephew, Charles VI; if May depicts Paris, its architecture, too, would have carried predominantly royal connotations to viewers in the period. However, as Jonathan Alexander has pointed out, even though the structures of June (the Palais de la Cité) and October (the Louvre) were the king’s possessions, the miniatures present them from roughly the vantage point of Jean de Berry’s principal Parisian residence, the Hôtel de Nesle on the Left Bank. The Château of Vincennes also had a personal relevance to the Duke, in that he was born within its walls in . Of the
G. Papertiant, ‘Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry’, in Revue des Arts‚ (), p. . E. Morand, ‘La Ville de Riom et la fête de Mai dans les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry’, in: Bulletin de l’Académie des Sciences, Belles-Lettres et Arts de Clermont-Ferrand, (), pp. -. Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), p. ; Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Meiss explicitly rejected Morand’s thesis, and supported that of Papertiant; Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. His preference has been widely followed, most recently by Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), p. . Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Ibid., p. . Ibid., p. . Ibid., p. . Alexander, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -.
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
63
châteaux, September’s Saumur has the most distant ducal connection; it was owned by his nephew, Duke Louis II of Anjou. The link between the Duke and Mont St-Michel is also indistinct. The monument was a popular pilgrimage site, and was renowned as a symbol of French resistance against the English, but Berry was hardly alone in his interest in the site, and it appears in a handful of other luxurious Books of Hours of the period. Complicating matters, recent scholarship has called into question the Limbourgs’ authorship of several of the calendar pages that display ‘architectural portraits’. In , Luciano Bellosi suggested that a mid fifteenth-century painter was responsible for much if not all of several scenes: March, June, September, October, and December. While specialists continue to debate the identity of the artist in question, many perceptive scholars have agreed with his proposition. If, as some have suggested, this later artist was indeed entirely responsible for the decision to represent the Palais de la Cité, the Louvre, and the châteaux of Saumur and Vincennes, it would solve the problem presented by those monuments’ tenuous ducal connections. As Catherine Reynolds has recently noted, all of the possibly added buildings were affiliated with King Charles VII, and evidence suggests that he or a member of his immediate circle may have owned the Très Riches Heures in the late ’s and early ’s. But whether the mid fifteenth-century painter executed illuminations that were entirely of his own design or completed images sketched out on the page by the Limbourgs, no one has questioned the attribution to the Limbourgs of the four courtly scenes that concern us – January, April, May, and August. Furthermore, the identification of Etampes in the August page is particularly compelling, as its distinctive poly-lobed donjon has survived to the present day. This allows us to say that in at least one case the Limbourgs incorporated references
Ibid. Ibid., pp. and . L. Bellosi, ‘I Limbourg precursori di Van Eyck? Nuove osservationi sui “Mesi” di Chantilly’, in: Prospettiva, () pp. -. E. König, ‘Le peintre de l’Octobre des “Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry,”’ in: Le dossier de l’archéologie, () pp. -; Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), pp. , , , and ; Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. For the most recent discussion of the dating of these additions, see C. Reynolds, ‘The “Très Riches Heures,” the Bedford Workshop, and Barthélmy d’Eyck’, in: The Burlington Magazine, (), pp. -. Lusignan represents a case in which the castle would have been appropriate for either Jean de Berry or a later patron in the circle of Charles VII, as it became the latter’s property in ; see Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. . See Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), vol. , illus. .
64
stephen perkinson
to a specific building that was affiliated with the Duke into one of the calendar scenes; they may have done so in several instances. While scholars have devoted a great deal of attention to the identification of the buildings, they have spent less time considering why the Limbourgs would have included recognizable buildings in the calendar scenes. For Panofsky, the ‘architectural portraits’ provided a means of inserting the Limbourgs into an art historical narrative in which leading artists strive to achieve a perfect degree of ‘sharp-eyed observant naturalism’. For Meiss, too, these ‘true architectural portraits’ were evidence of a broad-based impulse towards artistic naturalism. ‘It is not surprising’, he wrote, ‘that they appear around the same time as portraits of persons’. Meiss also remarked upon another possible source of pleasure for the Duke in viewing these pictures, noting that the Duke only rarely left Paris after , and suggesting that the sight of his castles scattered throughout the calendar pages might therefore have ‘aroused nostalgia’ in him. More recently, Jonathan Alexander has pointed to a less emotive rationale for the decision to include references to the buildings, writing that their appearance in the scenes had the effect of ‘repeatedly calling attention to his [the Duke’s] enormous landed wealth and the military power necessary to protect it . . .’. While Alexander’s arguments avoid the teleological view of history implicit in the earlier accounts, it still does not fully answer the question of why someone – the artists, a court advisor, or the Duke himself – would have made the decision to include these references to particular monuments in the calendar pages. To answer that question, we need to examine the ‘architectural portraits’ within the broader network of references to the identity of the Duke – and, perhaps, his immediate circle – in the calendar scenes.
Filling the ‘Family Album’: Proposed Identifications of Figures in April, May, and August As we have seen, the scholarly search for portraits in the Très Riches Heures quickly expanded beyond the January page to include three other scenes involving courtly pursuits. Many scholars have suggested that April (illus. )
Panofsky, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Ibid., p. . Alexander, op. cit. (n. ), p. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
65
shows the betrothal of one of Jean de Berry’s offspring. Cazelles, Longnon and Meiss all identified the couple as the duke’s eleven-year-old granddaughter, Bonne, and Charles of Orléans, who were engaged in . For Bourdin and, most recently, Patricia Stirnemann, the scene depicts the engagement of the duke’s daughter, Marie, with Jean de Bourbon, an event that took place in the year . Numerous scholars have suggested that the next image, the scene for May (illus. ), features the same couple that Bourdin and Stirnemann perceived in April: the duke’s daughter, Marie, and Jean de Bourbon. Cazelles and Lognon also suggested that one of the equestrian figures is a royal prince, as his tricolor red, white and black livery was associated with Charles VI. Meiss buttressed the identification of Marie and Jean de Bourbon as the principal figures by stating that the bosses on the horses’ harnesses resemble a motif worn by members of the retinue of Jean de Bourbon’s father, Louis (II) de Bourbon as a symbol of their loyalty to him (as we will see, however, there are problems with this claim). Furthermore, Laurent Hablot recently pointed out that the gold badges worn by the heralds are similar to the device of the Order of the ‘Écu d’Or’ founded by Louis de Bourbon in . Beginning with Bourdin’s work of , scholars turned their attention to discerning portraits embedded in the August scene (illus. ). Bourdin’s identifications are often implausible (for instance, he offered the rather odd suggestion that the figure alone on the white horse is duke Jean de Berry himself, despite the fact that that figure is seen riding sidesaddle and wearing a woman’s clothes). Two years later, Cazelles more plausibly suggested that the figure on the white horse could be the duke’s granddaughter Bonne d’Armagnac. Stirnemann, on the other hand, pointed to similarities between the costume of the solitary woman in August and that worn by male figures in April and May,
Cazelles & Longnon, op. cit. (n. ), commentary for Pl. ; Meiss, op. cit. (n.), pp. -. Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -; Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n.), pp. -. Morand, op. cit. (n. ); Morand was followed by F. Lehoux, Jean de France, duc de Berri: Sa vie, son action politique, 1340-1416, vols. (Paris, -), vol. , p. , n. and, most recently, Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), p. . Bourdin pursued a different direction, identifying the key figures as Jean de Berry’s granddaughter Bonne and her betrothed Charles d’Orléans; see Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. L. Hablot, ‘La ceinture ESPERENCE et les devises des ducs de Bourbon’, in: ESPERENCE: le mécénat religiuex des princes de Bourbon au XVe siècle, ed. F. Perrot (Souvigny ), pp. -, esp. p. ; Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), p. . Bourdin, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -.
66
stephen perkinson
both of whom she had tentatively identified as Jean de Bourbon. This would in turn suggest that the solitary woman of August was the duke’s daughter, Marie, now married and wearing clothes similar to her husband’s. Of the various attempts to identify the figures in these four scenes, the most compelling are those that, like Stirnemann’s, pay close attention to details of costume, particularly as they pertain to the broad language of heraldry, devices, and liveries that plays so central a role in late medieval fashion. But on this score, the results of our efforts thus far remain problematic. For example, Meiss supported his contention that the harness bosses of April are a Bourbon motif by pointing to similarities between the items visible in the Très Riches Heures and jewelry worn by members of Louis de Bourbon’s entourage in the Hommages of the Count of Clermont of c. . But to illustrate the comparison, Meiss reproduced a black and white eighteenth-century engraved copy of fourteenth-century manuscript (illus. ). When one compares the bosses in the April scene to the jewelry in the full color seventeenth-century version, the contention that the images depict identical badges is less convincing (illus. ). There, it becomes evident that the jewelry consisted of light colored circular objects – pearls, perhaps – set against a blue or red disk; it also becomes clear that the number of circular elements varied widely, with some of the pieces appearing to feature ten or more of them. There are problems with other purportedly heraldic elements in these scenes as well. The word ‘vie’, perceived by Stirnemann on the harness of the figure at the left, is not known to have been part of a device favored by any of the individuals in question. The ‘Écu d’Or’ that Hablot noticed in the April scene is not known to have been used as a Bourbon emblem after the ’s, with the c. Hommages manuscript being the latest instance in which they appear. The word associated with the motif, ‘Allen’, also seems to have fallen
Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), p. . Cf. C. Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, -, vol. (Paris ), illus. . Stirnemann et al., op. cit. (n. ), p. ; Hablot, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Hablot, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -; Hablot also notes the badge’s appearance in the Très Riches Heures, seeing this as a sign that it remained in use, but he cites no further late examples of it. D’Arcy Jonathan Dacre Boulton, who appears to have been unaware of the date of the Hommages manuscript, reports that he found no concrete evidence after c. ; D’A.J.D. Boulton, The Knights of the Crown: The Monarchical Orders of Knighthood in Later Medieval Europe, - (Woodbridge ), pp. -. It should be noted that the badges seen in the Hommages manuscript lack the circular frames witnessed in the Très Riches Heures; cf. Sterling, op. cit. (n. ).
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
67
. Detail from Montfaucon’s Monumens de la monarchie françoise (-), appearing in M. Meiss, French Painting Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries (New York ), vol. , fig. .
into disuse before the fifteenth century, appearing on the ducal seal as late as . Finally, the supposedly royal tricolor livery on the central figure was not worn after , when it was replaced with a four color scheme that also included green. In short, the identities of these figures – if indeed they were meant to be recognized as particular people – remain exasperatingly equivocal today. But in fact, our frustration stems largely from the very nature of the late medieval system of signs of personal identity. That system employed a wide array of signs to denote the identity of an individual. Some of these were relatively accessible to a broad cross-section of late medieval society – for instance, the color codes employed in liveries were at times echoed by ordinary townsfolk who wished to
Hablot, op. cit. (n. ), p. . See the table in Paris : Les arts sous Charles VI, ed. E. Taburet-Delahaye et al. (Paris ), pp. -.
68
stephen perkinson
. Charles V Receiving the Homage of Louis II, Duke of Bourbon, from the Homages of the Count of Clermont, c. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Est. Oa. , f. ) [Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France]
demonstrate their loyalty to a lord. But other parts of the system were more opaque, even to contemporary audiences. This obscurity was intentional. For example, in order to decipher the full meaning of the single word or fragmentary phrase that formed part of a device, a courtier had to be intimately familiar with details of his or her lord’s public and private personae. Signs like these thus served as a test of iconographic knowledge, allowing members of a court to gauge each other’s degree of access to their lord’s identity.
For an excellent, lucid discussion of the use of devices, see L. Hablot, ‘Les signes de l’entente: Le role des devises et des ordres dans les relations diplomatiques entre les ducs de Bourgogne et les princes étrangers de à ’, in: Revue du Nord, (), pp. -.
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
69
Among these signs of personal identity were some that worked by referring in some way to the physical body of the person they represented. Scholars have been particularly fascinated by naturalistic portraits, in which artists represented the bodies of specific people by mimetically depicting their facial features. But it was even more common for representations of individuals to rely on what we have been calling the para-heraldic language. The viewers of late medieval art – the artists themselves, their patrons, and their immediate social circles – were intensely aware of the importance of emblems, orders, devices, and liveries, whose symbolic messages served to articulate and reinforce political allegiances and social hierarchies. One example of this is found in the frontispiece that Christine de Pizan attached to a collection of her own works which she probably presented to the French queen Isabelle of Bavaria in January of (illus. ). As Sandra Hindman has demonstrated, the scene is saturated with para-heraldic information, all of which reinforces the viewer’s ability to identify the woman receiving the book as the queen. Even the clothing worn by the queen’s handmaidens precisely matches garments described in the records of the queen’s household from the period. This image is of course not a record of the actual moment in which Christine gave the book to the Queen; after all, it was executed before the presentation that it depicts. In that sense, it is a proleptic image. It did not depict a real event, but rather Christine’s desires.
Underlying this scholarly interest is the fact that naturalistic portraiture is often taken as a visual symptom of the Renaissance, with the result that portraits are often pointed to with nationalistic pride as proof of a particular nation’s priority in launching the Renaissance; see S. Perkinson, ‘From Curious to Canonical: Jehan Roy de France and the Origins of the French School’, in Art Bulletin, (), pp. -. It should be noted that medieval artists and patrons also learned to represent an individual’s body without recourse to visual mimesis. For instance, in the period around the year , it was quite common for wealthy patrons to commission votive images fashioned from expensive material – precious metals or even wax – to be placed before altars. These votive images represented their subjects by sharing one of their bodily attributes: their weight. The duke and duchess of Burgundy, for example, made several such gifts in the late fourteenth century, even including votive images in the weight of favorite hunting dogs; see E. Picard, ‘La Dévotion de Philippe le Hardi et de Marguerite de Flandre’, in: Memoires de la Commission des antiquites du department de la Cote-d’Or, (-), pp. -. See Pastoureau, op. cit. (n. ); Hablot, op. cit. (n. ). London, British Library, Harley MS , f. r.; see Paris , op. cit. (n.), cat. no. , and J. Laidlaw, ‘The Date of the Queen’s Manuscript (London, British Library, Harley MS )’ online at http://www.pizan.lib.ed.ac.uk/harleydate.pdf. S. Hindman, ‘The Iconography of Queen Isabeau de Bavière (c. -): An Essay in Method’, in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, (), pp. -.
70
stephen perkinson
. Christine de Pizan presenting her book to Queen Isabelle, from the Collected Works of Christine de Pizan, c. (London, British Library, MS Harley , f. ) [Photo: British Library]
Likeness and the Courtly Gift It is not surprising that presentation scenes – charged with the hopes, dreams, and needs of their makers – were replete with references of the identity of the individuals who received such books. The inclusion of such references offered the individual presenting the book a means of improving the likelihood that his or her efforts in creating it would be remembered by its recipient; this, in turn, increased the chances that the recipient would reward the presenter in the future. Furthermore, such scenes could encourage future audiences to see the book as proof of a close bond of loyalty between the presenter and the recipient, between courtier and sovereign. The desire to manifest and memorialize such relationships was undoubtedly powerful when the book was commissioned, but it was an even more pressing concern in cases of books given as gifts. From the time of the groundbreaking studies of Marcel Mauss and Bronislaw Malinowski, scholars have recognized that gift-giving implicates both
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
71
donor and recipient in a relationship of mutual obligation. When a donor is of a lower social status than the recipient, the gift serves as an expression of loyalty and subservience to the superior figure; at the same time, the donor generally expects both tangible and intangible benefits in return, ranging from objects of value to protection and security. Two impressive recent studies by Brigitte Buettner and Jan Hirschbiegel have highlighted the extent to which gift giving was central to late medieval material culture. Both focus on the ‘étrennes’ exchanges that took place around the New Year, but many of their basic conclusions are applicable to the broader gift economy. By the early fifteenth century, ritualistic gift exchanges of this sort were the focus of elaborate ceremonies in which political alliances and social status were performed before a courtly audience. No visual records of the étrennes exist, but as Buettner notes they may have been choreographed in ways similar to presentation scenes appearing in manuscripts of the period (illus. and ). The objects at the center of such gift exchanges were unfailingly constructed of costly materials, including parchment, metalwork, carved gemstones, and even relics, all of which were combined in striking, and often startling, ways. Buettner notes that in the Livre des Trois Vertus (), Christine de Pizan provides a succinct discussion of courtly gifts that can help us in understanding the strategies that underlay the fabrication of these items. Christine uses several terms to describe gifts that she feels are particularly meritorious. She speaks of ‘joyaux’ and ‘belles choses’ that are worthy gifts to a high-ranking individual. She also speaks of the need to reward a member of the lower classes (‘povre ou simple personne’) who offers gifts manifesting ‘value ou bonté ou beauté ou estrangeté’.
M. Mauss, Essai sur le don: Forme et raison de l’échange dans les sociétés archaiques (Paris ); B. Malinoswki, Argonauts of the Western Pacific: An Account of Native Enterprise and Adventure in the Archipelagoes of Melanesian New Guinea (London ). B. Buettner, ‘Past Presents: New Year’s Gifts at the Valois Courts, ca. ’, in: Art Bulletin, (), pp. -. Indeed, recent scholarship has suggested that Harley was in fact an étrenne offered by Christine to Queen Isabelle; see Paris , op. cit. (n. ), cat. no. , and Laidlaw, op. cit. (n. ). Buettner, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -; J. Hirschbiegel, Etrennes. Untersuchungen zum höfischen Geschenkverkehr im spätmittelalterlichen Frankreich der Zeit König Karls VI. (-) (Munich ). Christine de Pizan, Le Livre des trois vertus, eds. C.C. Willard & E. Hicks (Paris ), pp. -; Christine de Pizan, The Treasure of the City of Ladies, trans. S. Lawson (rev. ed., New York ), p. .
72
stephen perkinson
. Presentation of precious stones and jewels, from a manuscript of the Livre des propriétés des choses, Paris, c. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. , f. v.) [Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France]
While the first three of those terms have been retained by post-medieval discourses of desire and commodity, the last of the four – ‘estrangeté’, or elsewhere in the text, ‘chose estrange’ – might strike a modern reader as unfamiliar. It is perhaps best translated as ‘marvelous’ or ‘rare’ and likely refers to certain ineffable qualities that made the gift memorable: its unusual use of material, for instance, or its clever invocations of courtly interests and conventions. Aside from their precious materials, objects given to powerful lords by their underlings almost always had another feature in common: each generally displayed one or more sign of the identity of its intended recipient. Most frequently these signs were para-heraldic in nature. For instance, the Duke of
One example of this is particularly telling for our purposes: the ‘counterfeit book’ offered by the Limbourgs to Jean de Berry as an étrenne in ; see Buettner, op. cit. (n. ), p. , and J. Guiffrey, Inventaire de Jean, duc de Berry (-), vol. (Paris, ), no. . This sense of the term is partially retained by modern usage in several languages. The modern French noun, ‘étranger’, or ‘foreign’, for instance, carrying a sense of the exoticism of the foreign that links it to ‘étrange’, or ‘strange’ – an English word itself etymologically derived from the Old French ‘estrange’. Similarly, the modern Dutch word ‘raar’, etymologically akin to ‘rare’, means ‘strange.’ I am grateful to Rob Dückers and Pieter Roelofs for calling the latter example to my attention.
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
73
Berry received rings of gold and gemstones carved with his coat of arms from Louis of Anjou in and from another lesser nobleman in . In the duke’s widowed daughter-in-law, Anne de Bourbon, offered him a golden container for fragrant oil in the shape of his family insignia, the fleur-de-lys, hanging on a delicate golden chain. Other times, the signs of identity were more obscure. The duke’s daughter Marie gave him a jewel-encrusted perfume container in the form of a bear in , for example, while her husband, Jean de Bourbon, gave the duke a ring featuring a swan in . That same year, Louis of Anjou offered the duke a ring with diamonds carved into the initials ‘E’ and ‘V’. The French words for the bear and the swan may have been part of a rebus for the name of the duke’s mistress, perhaps a woman named Ursine, or for one of his patron saints, St. Ursin. Likewise, scholars have alternately proposed that the initials ‘E’ and ‘V’ stood in for a phrase that served as the duke’s motto, ‘en vous’, perhaps, or as the first and last letters of the name ‘Ursine’. Not surprisingly, all of those symbols appear throughout the Très Riches Heures (illus. and ). For our purposes, their most notable appearance occurs in the January scene (illus. ), where they are inserted in a conveniently natural way into the very fabric of the image. Courtly gifts created in the early years of the fifteenth century began for the first time to use naturalistic portraiture as a sign of identity. In , Queen Isabelle gave her husband Charles VI the spectacular piece known as the ‘Goldene Rössl’ as an étrenne (illus. ). Art historians generally assume that the topography of the enameled face of the king’s image refers to the actual features of the king himself (illus. ). A handful of references to images in the duke of Berry’s inventories back up that assumption, proving that some gifts were understood by their original audiences as incorporating naturalistic portraits. For example, Jean de Berry’s inventories tell us that in his son in
Guiffrey, op. cit. (n. ), vol. , nos. and . Ibid., no. . Ibid., nos. and . Ibid., no. . Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. ; Guiffrey, op. cit. (n. ), vol. , p. cxxx and vol. , p. . M. Thomas, The Grandes Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry, trans. V. Benedict & B. Eisler (New York ), see esp. the notes to Pl. . Duke d’Aumale, op. cit. (n. ), p. ; Cazelles, op. cit. (n. ), p. . For attributions of these pages, see Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. For the Goldene Rössl, see Das goldene Rössl: ein Meisterwerk der Parisier Hofkunst um , ed. R. Baumstark et al. (Munich ); Buettner, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -.
74
stephen perkinson
. The Limbourg Brothers, The Annunciation, from the Très Riches Heures, / (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. ) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
75
. The Limbourg Brothers, The Zodiacal Man, from the Très Riches Heures, / (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS , f. v.) [photo: Faksimile Verlag Luzern]
76
stephen perkinson
. The “Goldene Rössl,” Paris, c. (Altöting Abbey, Altöting, Austria) [Photo: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY]
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
77
. Detail of The “Goldene Rössl,” Paris, c. (Altöting Abbey, Altöting, Austria) [Photo: Erich Lessing / Art Resource, NY]
78
stephen perkinson
law, Jean de Bourbon, offered him a ring bearing gems shaped into ‘the likeness of the face of the duke’. Likewise, in the duke’s grandson presented him with ‘a gold ring on which the face of the duke is counterfeited in a cameo’. While these precious objects are now lost, they must have resembled a ring of about that today is in the Louvre (illus. ). It represents Jean de Berry’s nephew, Duke John the Fearless of Burgundy, with features and costume identical to those found in other representations of him, like the one in The Book of Marvels, dated around (illus. ). The references to the Duke’s identity continue on the interior surface of the band, which displays a carpenter’s plane, an object which he had adopted as his device. At the same time, the evidence of archival sources demonstrates that naturalistic portraiture was not automatically preferred over other methods of representation. We have seen, for instance, that in Jean de Bourbon offered his father-in-law, the duke, a ring with a stone carved in the ‘likeness’ of the duke’s face, while the next year his wife, the duke’s daughter Marie, offered her father a perfume container in the shape of a bear. This indicates that patrons did not necessarily favor naturalistic portraiture over other, more symbolic forms of representation. Thus whereas modern scholars tend to see the introduction of naturalistic portraits into images as marking a sharp break with previous traditions, early fifteenth-century audiences saw naturalistic portraiture as a supplement to, rather than a replacement for, established representational systems. Moreover, all of these examples call into question the degree to which patrons can be credited with the willful introduction of their own physiognomic likenesses into imagery. In the case of gifts incorporating naturalistic portraits – the rings given to Jean de Berry and the Goldene Rössl given to Charles VI, for instance – the images represent their recipients, and not the person who commissioned them. The social positions of the gift-givers were of course highly
Guiffrey, op. cit. (n . ), vol. , no. . Ibid., no. . Elsewhere I’ve shown that the Old French term ‘counterfeit’ – contrefait – specifically implies that the representation involved the replication of visible features; these rings were therefore perceived by their original audiences as physiognomic likenesses. See S. Perkinson, ‘Portraits and Counterfeits: Villard de Honnecourt and Thirteenth-Century Theories of Representation’, in: Excavating the Medieval Image: Manuscripts, Artists, Audiences – Essays in Honor of Sandra Hindman, ed. N.A. Rowe and D. Areford, eds. (Aldershot ), pp. -. Paris , op. cit. (n. ), no. ; and Art from the Court of Burgundy, op. cit. (n. ), no. . Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS fr. , f. r.; Art from the Court of Burgundy, op. cit. (n. ), no. .
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
79
. Ring with the profile of John the Fearless, France, early th century (Paris, Musée du Louvre) [Photo: Réunion des Musées Nationaux / Art Resource, NY]
80
stephen perkinson
. Presentation of the book to John the Fearless, from the Book of Marvels, Paris, c. (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, MS fr. , f. ) [Photo: Bibliothèque nationale de France]
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
81
dependent upon public perceptions of their loyalty to, and intimacy with, the gifts’ recipients. This was even the case when the donor was someone as seemingly powerful as the queen. Queen Isabelle found herself torn between various factions during her husband’s periodic bouts of insanity, and charges of infidelity were leveled against her as a form of political pressure; the attacks on her came to a head in the year , at roughly the same time as she was offering the Goldene Rössl to her husband. These patrons’ keenly felt obligation to demonstrate intense loyalty may well have driven them to include references to their lords’ faces in such gifts. In other words, because of its ability to connote close access to, and strong memories of, individual people, naturalistic portraiture may have been introduced as a means of displaying the loyalty and devotion of courtiers to their powerful overlords. This would include artists, who may have taken it upon themselves to insert naturalistic references into the images they were charged with producing, just as Jean de Bourbon would insert the features of his fatherin-law, the Duke, into an étrenne.
Conclusion: ‘estrangeté ’ in the Très Riches Heures So what does all of this mean for the calendar pages of the Très Riches Heures? First and foremost, it means that it remains plausible that the figures in the scenes were meant to be recognized as particular individuals. While this recognition may have depended in part on the artists’ endowing the figures with naturalistic portraits, such verism would have been unnecessary. In the case of female figures, it may even have been undesirable. It is perhaps significant that the ruggedly individualized features of images of several male figures in the scenes, particular those of Jean de Berry, contrast sharply with the more blandly generic bodies of the women in the miniatures. Now that we recognize that naturalistic portraiture was supplemental to, rather than required for, the representation of individuals, an explanation of these women’s elegantly calligraphic bodies presents itself: their features may simply visualize the ideals of courtly beauty, rather than representing the actual appearance of specific individuals’ bodies. Indeed, whether or not naturalistic portraiture is present in any of these figures, the artists would likely have relied heavily on the use of para-heraldic signs associated with the individuals in question to identify them. The fact that
F.A utrand, Charles VI (Paris ), pp. - and passim.
82
stephen perkinson
present-day scholars have difficulty identifying those individuals may result from the nature of that system of personal signs: it was designed to be fully accessible only to members of the court’s inner circle, of which we are quite clearly not a part. None of this proves that these figures were intended to be recognizable, however. Until conclusive proof emerges, we must remain open to the possibility that they were simply generic scenes of courtly pleasures. But we can be confident that the face of Jean de Berry in the January scene was meant to be seen as a naturalistic, mimetic likeness. This is not to say that it was unequivocally a ‘portrait’ in the sense implied by early modern members of that genre. Through a combination of obsessive attention to detail and the addition of textual inscriptions (e.g., the convention of adding a legend bearing the words ‘aetatis suae’ followed by the sitter’s age), those later images insist on being understood as precise replicas of an individual’s appearance on a particular day. Jean de Berry’s face in the January scene is instead an instance of his personal iconography, in which corporeal likeness serves as an adjunct to other signs of identity. Nevertheless, this particular iconographic formation – this combination of visual signs of identity and its invocation in an exceptionally lavish sequence of calendar illustrations – was unprecedented at the time of its creation, and would undoubtedly have been remarked by the Duke and others who examined the results of the Limbourgs’ labors. These elaborate references to ducal identity can perhaps be understood in part as forms of visual surplus inserted into the images by the Limbourgs. To adopt the language of the courtly gift, those references to identity would be what endowed the images with ‘estrangeté’ as well as ‘value’, ‘goodness’, and ‘beauty’. Such references allowed the Limbourgs to flatter their patron by demonstrating their familiarity with the visual codes associated with him and, perhaps, his family. This in turn means that we might be wise to spend less time worrying about which specific historical moment the calendar scenes represent, and instead consider the events as, at most, generalizing, broad references to important events in the Duke’s life. If the Limbourgs really did seek to represent a past event like the engagement of the duke’s daughter, Marie, in , they would have undoubtedly been at least somewhat unfamiliar with the details of that event. After all, at the time of the engagement in April of that year, Herman and Jean were in prison miles away, and the brothers would not enter the service of Jean de Berry until four or five years after the event. They may, however, have sought to endow the scenes with the aura of history by deploying what was, by the time they had begun decorating the Très Riches Heures, an archaic set of heraldic devices. This could explain why the figures
likeness, loyalty, and the life of the court artist
83
in April appear to wear the outdated livery of Charles VI and the old ‘écus d’or’ of Louis de Bourbon. Historians today believe that these symbols would no longer have been actively employed by , but the Limbourgs may have simply perceived them as ‘old’, without being fully cognizant of the dates of their use. If we ever are able to identify the figures in these scenes convincingly, those identifications are likely to be the result of extensive archival research that would allow us to match the costumes worn by the figures with clothing known to have been owned by particular individuals. At the same time, given the paucity of surviving records from this period, it remains entirely possible that we will never be able to identify these figures with any degree of certainty. It is also possible that the figures were never meant to be identified in the first place; as Durrieu wrote a century ago, each scene may be nothing more than ‘fantasy’. But again, we can be certain that at least one of these faces was meant to resemble the appearance of a specific individual: that of Jean de Berry himself. And we can also address the question of why it would have been desirable for these particular artists to include those particular features in this particular manuscript. The answers to that question can be found in the context of the lives led by these artists at the court, with its thirst for visual ‘estrangeté’ and its demand for the incessant demonstration of loyalty.
The Limbourgs would likely have seen at least a few of the old ‘Écu d’Or’ emblems, as Hablot notes that the gold shields were still visible as late as the eighteenth century in castles that had been owned by Louis II de Bourbon; Hablot, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Durrieu, op. cit. (n. ), p. .
A Pilgrim’s Additions. Traces of Pilgrimage in the Belles Heures of Jean de Berry
Hanneke van Asperen
Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands
The names of Jean de Berry and the Limbourg brothers are inextricably bound up with the Belles Heures. After all, both the commissioner and the makers left their personal mark on the manuscript. Because the names of the talented brothers and the bibliophile duke arouse everyone’s curiosity and admiration, scholars pay less attention to the afterlife of the manuscript book of hours. The book must have been read and admired, after the duke passed away and the book changed hands. Notably however, in the manuscript itself there are no indications of its subsequent owners. Actually, very few traces of wear and tear inform us of the way the manuscript was used after it left the residence of the duke of Berry. Until the reader reaches f. 21. On this blank folio without any text or miniature, there are two imprints of small pilgrims’ souvenirs. The blank page with the impressions of the badges is the starting point of this contribution. From studying comparable imprints in books, it is possible to deduce when the badges must have been sewn in. More fascinating than the exact moment the badges were added to the book, is the question why. What was the motivation? Did the owner at the time look at the contents of the codex when he applied the badges or is their location arbitrary? In other words, is there a direct relationship between the badges and the book? As a comparison with a book of hours of duke Philip the Good of Burgundy will show, the Belles Heures are not an isolated example of a devotional manuscript with traces of pilgrimage souvenirs. The owners firmly embedded the badges (and so their pilgrimage) into their religious life. The location of the badges sheds some light on the reasons of the pilgrim to add the badges and consequently on the way the book of hours and its pictures or picture cycles were conceived.
86
hanneke van asperen
. Imprints of two pilgrim’s badges, f. r. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, acc.no. ...
The Scholarly Literature The imprints of the badges appear in the upper right hand corner of f. 21 (illus. 1). This is a blank page without text or miniature, without lining or marginal decoration. The page is part of a bifolium, together with f. 29, added to protect the pages containing the gospel lessons (ff. 22-28). The imprints are faint, they show very few details. The offets just give an indication of the outer edge and some of the protruding parts of the badges.1 The two medals must have measured about 28 and 31 mm, but their imagery remains a mystery. In an article in the Gatherings in honor of Dorothy Miner, John Plummer already mentions the circular offsets.2 In his contribution, Plummer discusses the missing miniature that once preceded the gospel of Saint John. When he depicts the verso of f. 21 to show the offset of the missing miniature, he tells us
1 At this point, I would like to thank Margaret Lawson who was kind enough to observe ff. 20 and 21 in detail for any traces that the badges might have left. Unfortunately, the traces of the offset material are too faint to establish what metal the badges were made of. Margaret Lawson informed me that the parchment itself has offset pigments and dirt overall. This makes it difficult to obtain an accurate measure of the parchment as a background reading. 2 John Plummer, ‘A blank page in the Belles Heures’, in: Gatherings in honor of Dorothy E. Miner, ed. Ursula E. McCracken (Baltimore 1974), p. 197.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
87
to disregard ‘the two dark rings in the upper left and the dark spots they encircle, for these are stains showing through from the preceding page’. For Plummer’s research on the miniature of Saint John, a further identification of the offsets is not relevant. It is not until recently that scholarly attention has turned towards these traces of pilgrimage souvenirs. Since John Plummer described the folio in the Belles Heures, some scholars have dedicated themselves to the custom of attaching badges to manuscripts. Kurt Köster, for example, describes several manuscripts with badges and offsets in two articles that were published in 1965 and 1979 (seven manuscripts in total).3 In 1998, Denis Bruna has added a few manuscripts and one incunable with badges and devotional pictures in them (nine manuscripts).4 These publications with the description of sixteen different manuscripts are a perfect base for further study of badges and imprints. The books with badges are almost exclusively books of hours and some prayer-books. Apparently, pilgrims liked adding their souvenirs to devotional texts. Furthermore, almost all manuscripts are books of everyday use. They show many traces of wear and tear. Finally, traces of badges in manuscripts are not unique and, as was to be expected, many manuscripts with traces of badges can be added to the rough inventory of Köster and Bruna.5 Slowly, scholars are starting to recognize the imprints that adorn many devotional books, as illustrated by the recent publications on the Belles Heures. In the volume that accompanies the new facsimile of the Belles Heures (2004), Eberhard König mentions the imprints as well, identifying them as pilgrims’ badges. ‘Jean de Berry selbst wird das Buch eine gewisse Zeitlang als Gebetbuch benutzt haben. Die auffälligste Spur fromme Gebrauchs mag erklären, warum ausgerechnet eine Bildervita der heiligen Katharina (ff. 15-20) als
3 Kurt Köster, ‘Religiöse Medaillen und Wallfahrts-Devotionalien in der flämischen Buchmalerei des 15. und frühen 16. Jhs. Zur Kenntnis gemalter und wirklicher Kollektionen in spätmittelalterlichen Gebetbüchern’, in: Buch und Welt. Gustav Hofmann zum 65. Geburtstag dargebracht, eds. H. Striedl & J. Wieder (Wiesbaden 1965), pp. 459-504 and Kurt Köster, ‘Kollektionen metallener Wallfahrts-Devotionalien und kleiner Andachtsbilder eingenäht in spätmittelalterliche Gebetbuch-Handschriften’, in: Erlesenes aus der Welt des Buches. Gedanke, Betrachtungen, Forschungen, ed. Bertram Haller (Wiesbaden 1979), pp. 77-130. 4 Denis Bruna, ‘Témoins de dévotions dans les livres d’heures a la fin du Moyen Age’, in: Revue Mabillon, 9, t. 70 (1998), pp. 127-61. 5 See for example A.M. Koldeweij, ‘Pelgrimsinsignes in het getijdenboek “D’Oiselet”’, in: Heilig en Profaan. 1000 Laatmiddeleeuwse Insignes uit de collectie H.J.E. van Beuningen, eds. H.J.E. van Beuningen & A.M. Koldeweij (Cothen 1993), pp. 46-8, and Brian W. Spencer, Medieval finds from excavations in London, VII: Pilgrim souvenirs and secular badges (Southampton 1998), p. 20, illus. 10.
88
hanneke van asperen
Erkennungszeichen dienen konnte. Direkt im Anschluß daran erkennt man auf fol. 21 zwei runde Abdrucke; sie stammen offenbar von Abzeichen, wie sie Pilger heimbrachten’.6 König did not just identify the impressions, he also recognized their value in understanding the devotional usage of the book. His suggestion that Jean de Berry himself might have added the pilgrimage souvenirs to the book, needs some further investigation. The fact that the duke commissioned the book does not necessarily imply that he was the only one to ever use it. Yolande of Aragon and the owners after her could have taken up the manuscript as well, even applying it for their devotions.
The Practice to Attach Badges to Books The practice to add badges to devotional books only seems to have become popular during the second half of the fifteenth century. The origins can be connected with the development of a new type of badge: the punched medal. From the twelfth century onwards, pilgrims’ badges for the most part were cast. The liquid metal, usually pewter, was poured into a mould of slate or sandstone. During the fifteenth-century, a new technique to make pilgrimage souvenirs came into use besides the usual casting. An image was punched into a wafer-thin sheet of metal with a die of iron leaving a negative imprint on the back of the badge. Because the metal is so flimsy, the badge is light, with a tendency to break or tear. This technique was used mainly for badges of a copper alloy or silver, more precious materials than pewter. The silver badges could even be gilded, for a more demanding clientele. The stamped badges differed fundamentally from their cast relatives. They are usually very small, about 20-30 mm in diameter, and extremely light (they generally weigh less than one gram). The images were sometimes provided with punched holes, so that the objects could be attached to a background with needle and thread. The different characteristics gave rise to new applications: the badges could be hung on a rosary or sewn onto the pages of a manuscript. The light badges were extremely suitable for an attachment to the parchment, because they didn’t tear the page. The technique was used for the production of clothing ornaments. During the reign of Philip the Bold (1342-1404) for example, courtiers wore trinkets on their clothing that were stamped out of thin pieces of gold and silver. The technique of these ornaments corresponds to the stamped badges, even though
6 Eberhard König, Die Belles Heures des Duc de Berry. Sternstunden der Buchkunst (Luzern 2004), p. 13.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
89
the objects had another usage. For workers in precious metals, it was a small step to translate this familiar technique to pilgrims’ badges that could be worn on clothing as well. The stamped souvenirs however were only produced on a large scale from the second half of the fifteenth century.7 Most of the books with (traces of ) badges, published by Köster and Bruna, date from the end of the fifteenth century or beginning of the sixteenth century. The practice to add pilgrimage souvenirs to devotional books apparently became popular during the final decades of the fifteenth century, during the final years of the reign of duke Philip the Good of Burgundy (who died in 1467) and after. During this period, stamped medals were available at every pilgrimage site, often as an expensive(-looking) alternative for the pewter badges. In different books of prayer that once belonged to Philip the Good, imprints of badges show up.8 In the Grandes Heures of Philip the Good (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, MS 11 035-37 and Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS III-1954), more than fourty-six metal badges once adorned the pages.9 The book originally belonged to Philip the Bold, but the badges were not attached to the parchment until after 1440, when the memoriae were added to the manuscript.10 Other badges accompany prayers that were written by Jean Miélot; these prayer texts were not added to the manuscript until 1451 (ff. 7r. and 87v.) providing a terminus post quem.11
7 Kurt Köster, ‘Mittelalterliche Pilgerzeichen und Wallfahrtsdevotionalien’, in: Rhein und Maas. Kunst und Kultur 800-1400 (Cologne 1972), pp. 146-60 (p. 148) and Brian W. Spencer, op. cit. (n. 5), p. 20. 8 Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 11 035-37, Cambridge, Fitzwilliam, MS III-1954 and Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, MS 1800. See Köster, art. cit. (n. 3: 1965), Köster, art. cit. (n. 3: 1979) and Bruna, art. cit. (n. 4), p. 146, no. I. 9 On the badges in the Grandes Heures, see Köster, art. cit. (n. 3: 1979), pp. 87-103 and Bruna, art. cit. (n. 4), p. 146. The manuscript in Cambridge contained 25 badges, the book in Brussels 21. 10 Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS III-1954, ff. 226-75. Alain Arnould & Jean Michel Massing, Splendours of Flanders (Cambridge 1993), p. 144. On the complex history of the manuscript hours, see Anne Hagiopan van Buren, ‘Dreux Jehan and the Grandes Heures of Philip the Bold’, in: Als ich can, eds. Bert Cardon, Jan Van der Stock et al. (Paris 2002), pp. 1377-414 and Bernard Bousmanne, Céline Van Hoorebeeck & Alain Arnould, La Librairie des Ducs de Bourgogne. Manuscrits conservés à la Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, vol. 1: Textes liturgiques, ascétiques, théologiques, philosophiques et moraux (Turnhout 2000), pp. 264-72. 11 Claudine Lemaire identified the writer of the prayer to the Virgin on ff. 87v.-90r. as Jean Miélot. Lemaire identified the writer of the four prayers against the temptation of the flesh that were added to the miniature of the Apocalyptic Virgin (f. 7r.), as ‘Main B’. Bousmanne, Hoorebeeck, Arnould, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 268. According to Anne Hagiopan van Buren, Jean Miélot wrote the prayers against the temptations of the flesh as well. Hagiopan van Buren, art.cit. (n. 10), p. 1388.
90
hanneke van asperen
The badges must have been attached to the parchment during the second half of the fifteenth century or shortly after, perhaps by Philip the Good himself who certainly had cause and opportunity to purchase the souvenirs. In fact, Philip the Good was a passionate collector of pilgrimage souvenirs.12 Philip the Good certainly used the book on a regular basis. In the commission to Dreux Jean of 1451, the book is called ‘les grandes heures cotidienne’, paraphrased ‘the large hours for daily usage’.13 The omission of the book from the list of objects in his library that was made up after his death, could mean that the book was kept in the private chapel of the duke in Dijon that was left out of this inventory.14 Philip the Good had the means and the oppurtunity to add the badges to the book. Because the owner of the book after the death of the duke is uncertain, it is tempting to point to Philip as the pilgrim to collect the badges. However, the badges could have been added after Philip’s death as well. The practice to attach the souvenirs to pages of a manuscript prayer book remained in use until into the sixteenth century. The badges in the Belles Heures must have been added during the second half of the fifteenth century or the beginning of the sixteenth century as well, when the mass production of the stamped badges and the practice to add them to books were well established. Unfortunately, the identity of the owner at the time remains a mystery. After the death of the duke in 1416, the manuscript prayer book was sold. It remained within the hands of family. It was purchased from the estate of the duke by Yolande of Aragon (1383-1443) who was a great-niece of Jean de Berry, and a niece by matrimonial bond.15 She wed a nephew of the duke, Louis II of Anjou. They had several children, among who Marie (1404-63), the future wife of Charles VII who was crowned king of France in 1429. Another one of their children was René of Anjou (1408-80), who became known as René the Good, titular king of Naples, Jerusalem and Aragon. Yolande died in 1443. The book could have been part of her library for
12 On the purchase of badges by Philip the Good, see Comte De Laborde, Les ducs de Bourgogne. Études sur les Lettres, les Arts et l’Industrie pendant le XV e siècle et plus particulièrement dans les Pays-Bas et le Duché de Bourgogne, 3 vols. (Paris 1849-52) and De la Fons-Mélicoq, ‘Documents pour servir a l’histoire des médailles’, in: Revue de la Numismatique Belge, 24 (1868), pp. 75-81. 13 Hagiopan van Buren, art. cit. (n. 10), p. 1381, n. 28 and Bousmanne, Hoorebeeck, Arnould, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 271. 14 Bousmanne, Hoorebeeck, Arnould, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 271. 15 Jean Lebourne, secretary and guardian of the estate, took the book into his custody when Jean de Berry died. The then estimated value was 875 livres tournois. Yolande bought it for 300 livres. König, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 13, and Paul Durrieu, ‘Les “Belles Heures” de Jean de France Duc de Berry’, in: Gazette des Beaux-Arts, 48, pér. 3, tome 35 (1906), pp. 265-92 (p. 267).
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
91
some time. Whether the manuscript book stayed in the possession of her family, perhaps one of her children, is uncertain. Only in 1880, the manuscript resurfaced as part of the collection of the French noble family D’Ailly, perhaps owned – according to the Metropolitan Museum – by the baron d’Ailly, when it was acquired by baron Edmond de Rothschild.16 In all probability, the manuscript stayed within the hands of French nobility after it left the residence of Yolande of Aragon.
The Motivation of the Pilgrim The person to add the badges to a book had several reasons to do so. Of course, the manuscript protected the fragile badge from loss and damage. This way, the memory of the pilgrimage was preserved. Pilgrimage souvenirs were tangible relics of a devotional journey and, as such, a suitable addition to a book containing devotional texts for personal use. Within the context of the book, the owner could vary the locations of the badges, dependant on the available locations and the personal preferences of the book owner. The owner of the Belles Heures did not apply the badges to a fly leaf of the manuscript hours. The prints appear on f. 21. These imprints are offsets of the front side of the badges. Sewing holes are missing and the characteristics of the imprints also indicate that the badges must have been attached to the preceding page. On f. 20 however, no traces of badges are visible at all, and no sewing-holes. The page shows only a few slight dimples in the top corner, not nearly enough to establish the presence of badges on that page. This means, there must have been another support for the badges – between the current ff. 20 and 21 – that is now missing. The collation affirms this assumption. Presumably, f. 14 – now a singleton – was once part of a bifolium, protecting the quire with the picture cycle of Saint Catherine, as the blank bifolium around the gospel lessons.17 Apparently, the two badges were part of the miniature cycle of Saint Catherine before they were removed together with their original support.
16 Cristopher De Hamel, The Rothschilds and their Collections of Illuminated Manuscripts (London 2005), p. 26. See also Léopold Delisle, Mélanges de paléographie et bibliographie (Paris 1880), pp. 283-93 and Durrieu, op. cit. (n. 15), p. 267. 17 For the collation, see Plummer, art. cit. (n. 2), p. 194 and the revised table of the breakdown of the quires in The Belles Heures, illus. 28 in the contribution of Margaret Lawson to this volume.
92
hanneke van asperen
The Image of Mary in the Grandes Heures The Grandes Heures, once in the possession of duke Philip the Good, provides another example of badges that were added to an illumination. The then owner of this book of hours added dozens of badges to the manuscript. The pilgrim-owner carefully studied the contents of the book before sewing the objects to the pages. For example, a badge of Saint Sebastian accompanies a prayer to Saint Sebastian (f. 226v.), a badge of Nicholas is set alongside a memoria to that saint (f. 246v.), etc.18 Five badges, undoubtedly with a depiction of Mary, accompany prayers to the Virgin (f. 7r.). Apparently, the badges provided the devotee with a suitable image when he recited the text at hand. One time, the owner of the Grandes Heures selected a miniature as a suitable location (illus. 2). The miniature of the Virgin and Child, obviously trimmed along the sides, probably used to be part of a larger manuscript or circulated as a single leaf before it became part of the Grandes Heures. For the major part, the imprints of the badges remain within the outlines of the page indicating the objects were added after the miniature joined the Grandes Heures, probably in 1451 when the book was subdivided and rebound.19 The objects partially even overlap the precious picture. Judging from the few readible imprints, the badges did not (just) show images of Mary, they depict other saints, such as Adrian who was venerated in Geraardsbergen.20 The badges around the miniature apparently comprised various figures of saints and relics. The answer to the question why the badges were added to the miniature of Mary lies in the image itself. In the Grandes Heures, the Virgin is depicted on the crescent. This imagery is derived from the Apocalypse (12:1): ‘And a great sign appeared in heaven: A woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars.’ Even though the figure is not ‘clothed with the sun’, the image follows the general description of the Bible verse. The crescent below Mary is surrounded by angels and two of them place the crown studded with stars on her head. The illuminator combined the iconographical theme of the Apocalyptic Virgin with that of the Virgo Lactans, meaning the Virgin is suckling the Child that is lying in her arms.
18 Köster, art. cit. (n. 3: 1979), pp. 96-103. 19 The miniature of the Apocalyptic Virgin, even though it is obviously older than the prayers that go with it, was added to the manuscript at the same time, around 1450. Hagiopan van Buren, art. cit. (n. 10), p. 1384. 20 Köster, art. cit. (n. 3: 1979), pp. 88-92.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
93
. Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless, miniature of the Apocalyptic Virgin, Grandes Heures, f. 6v. Brussels, Bilbiothèque Royale de Belgique, MS -.
94
hanneke van asperen
The miniature used to be attributed to the Limbourg brothers.21 Today, the illuminator from the surroundings of the brothers-illuminators is usually referred to as the Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless.22 The former confusion with the Limbourgs is not entirely surprising, since there are many resemblances with Limbourg miniatures, especially with an illumination from the Belles Heures (illus. 3). Similarities do not just appear in small details such as the half-closed eyes, the drooping corners of the mouth and the intimate relationship between mother and child; the Virgin is depicted in an almost identical fashion. She is wearing a similar blue garment that partly covers her wavy blond hair. Draperies and folds carefully cover up the fact that the lower part of Mary’s body is missing. The Virgin holds the child close to her chest and even though she is not suckling it, the position of the child and that of her hands is analogous. In both images, Seraphim – the highest in the hierarchy of angels – are holding up a crown. The six-winged angels in the Belles Heures however are not crowning the Virgin, as they are in the Grandes Heures; they crown God the father. Seraphim usually appear around the heavenly throne. The Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless probably copied the angelic figures from the Limbourg illumination without adjusting their place in the hierarchy to their changed duties. Of course, there are many differences between the miniatures of Mary, the most eye-catching being the many figures that surround the Virgin and Child in the Belles Heures. Mary is depicted in the company of saints and the Trinity. God appears in the upper part of the miniature, with John the Apostle and John the Baptist on both sides, and the dove of the Holy Spirit below, completing the Trinity. Below them is a multitude of saints. The major part of the figures is not even recognizable as they are partially obscured by the large aureoles. Immediately flanking the Virgin are undoubtedly the Saints Paul and Peter. Paul carries the sword, but Peter lacks his attribute. He is recognizable because of his robe, bolding head, short grey beard and his position opposite to Paul. In front of Mary looking up to her are popular female saints such as Catherine, Dorothy, Margaret, Barbara and Apollonia with the pincers. All of the figures face the Virgin and Child and some of them fold their hands in prayer, as if the figures of the Virgin and Child are some sort of apparition.
21 Fréderic Lyna, ‘Un livre de prières inconnu de Philippe le Hardi (Bruxelles, MS 11035-37)’, in: Mélanges Hulin de Loo (Brussels, etc. 1931), pp. 249-59 (pp. 254-9). 22 Hagiopan van Buren, art. cit. (n. 10), p. 1384, Bousmanne, Hoorebeeck, Arnould, op. cit. (n. 10), p. 270 and Millard Meiss, French painting in the time of Jean de Berry. The Limbourgs and their contemporaries (New York 1974), pp. 236-7.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
95
. Limbourg brothers, miniature of the Virgin surrounded by saints, Belles Heures, f. r. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, acc. no. ...
96
hanneke van asperen
The spatial organization of the saints encircling Mary accentuates this idea of a vision. On the side of the onlooker, the saints open up the circle to impart the viewer to the vision of heaven. The Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless left the saints out of his version of the miniature, for he was depicting a vision of the Apocalyptic Virgin, rather than a vision of Paradise. The saints were only added at a later stage when the owner attached the badges to the book. In applying the badges, the owner of the book changed the iconography of the image drasticly, partially obscuring the angels around the crescent. He pictured Mary in the heavenly realm surrounded by the community of saints, not unlike the miniature in the Belles Heures. Perhaps, the owner actually knew the image from the book of hours that once belonged to Jean de Berry. More likely, the owner knew comparable images of Mary in the company of saints. With the badges, the owner added a personal note to the miniature of Mary. After all, the saints that surround Mary in the Grandes Heures have a special meaning to the owner of the manuscript. He probably visited a lot of the cult sites and gave his offerings to the saints that are represented in the manuscript prayer book through their images. Conceivably, the devotee hoped for a special treatment from the saints whom he had shown his deference. In adding the badges to the miniature of Mary, he did not just paint an arbitrary picture of the heavenly realm; he created a desirable image of heaven where the saints would be well-disposed towards him.
The Picture Cycle of Saint Catherine in the Belles Heures The owner of the Belles Heures added similar stamped badges to his book of hours, also to a miniature. There are several differences. The subject of the illumination was not Mary, but Saint Catherine of Alexandria. Moreover, the pilgrim-owner did not add the badges to one miniature in particular. The badges follow a cycle of miniatures depicting the life of the saint. The reasons to add badges to the Belles Heures were different. In the manuscript as a whole, pilgrimage plays a special role. The themes of journey and pilgrimage recur several times. Some saints are depicted as pilgrims, for example Saint Jerome visiting the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (f. 185v.) and Saint James (f. 160v.). In the latter miniature, the illuminator did not just represent the apostle, like the miniatures of the other saints and angels. Instead, he painted the interior of a chapel or church by placing the saint upon an altar. In front of the altar, two pilgrims kneel down to venerate the statue
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
97
of the apostle. In adding the pilgrims, the illuminator created a view of a pilgrimage site of Saint James. Eberhard König recognized a pilgrim in one of the four figures kneeling in front of the golden cross.23 Also the texts refer to travels. The final text of the manuscript hours is a prayer to read before going on a journey (f. 223v.). The badges were once attached to a blank folio after the picture cycle of Saint Catherine, more specifically following the miniature with the translation of her relics to Mount Sinai (illus. 4). One reason for the owner to attach the badges to this folio, could have been the connection of this image of Catherine with pilgrimage. The miniature does not just show the miraculous translation, it also depicts the monastery where the relics were kept after their discovery. In the foreground, a group of pilgrims approach with the intention to venerate and touch the remains of the saint. The pilgrims and the monastery building formed part of the miniature from the outset. The text below the miniature does not mention the monastery, but it relates of the oil that flows from Catherine’s body healing the sick. Like the other captions in the miniature cycle, it was taken from the Golden Legend.24 This miraculous oil that was widely known, attracted many pilgrims from all over the Christian world to the site of the relics of Saint Catherine on Mount Sinai. Possibly, the Limbourgs added the monastery to illustrate the passage on the miraculous oil. Perhaps, the brothers met the demands of the duke when they added the building. As Millard Meiss already stated, ‘the French court felt a close connection to the convent’.25 Charles VI donated a precious chalice in 1411 with the royal fleurs-de-lis of France. Both Jean de Berry and his brother Charles V kept amongst their relics some splinters of the tomb of the saint. Jean’s son-in-law Philip of Artois (1358-97) actually visited the monastery of Saint Catherine in 1389 after his emprisonment in Cairo.26 The stamp of the duke’s personality also shines through in other parts of the manuscript, especially in places where the Limbourgs depicted existing sites and buildings, such as the Grande Chartreuse in the Life of Bruno (illus. 5). The miniature shows the mother convent that was founded by the saint. The duke was an important benefactor of the carthusian monastery which is probably
23 König, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 114. 24 Jacobus de Voragine. The Golden Legend. Readings on the Saints, vol. II, ed. and transl. William Granger Ryan (Princeton, N.J. 1992) p. 339. 25 Millard Meiss & Elizabeth H. Beatson, De Belles Heures van Jean, Duc de Berry (Utrecht, etc. 1975), p. 24. 26 König, op. cit. (n. 6), p. 61 and Millard, Beatson, op. cit. (n. 25), no. 24.
98
hanneke van asperen
. Limbourg brothers, miniature with the translation of Catherine’s body to Mount Sinai, Belles Heures, f. r. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, acc.no. ...
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
99
. Limbourg brothers, miniature with the Grande Chartreuse, Belles Heures, f. v. New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters Collection, acc.no. ...
100
hanneke van asperen
why it takes up such an important place in the picture cycle and why it is depicted in such detail. The monastery of Saint Catherine also had personal meaning for Jean de Berry. Therefore, the building on Mount Sinai could have been a special request of the duke as well. Commissioned or not, the monastery of Saint Catherine was clearly recognizable to the beholder. The miniature shows some of the basic elements of the monastery: the almost square groundplan and the thick walls with few windows. In fifteenth-century journals, pilgrims describe the closed exterior of the cloister that is so impressive. Joos van Ghistele for example, who undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1480’s, pictures the exterior of the monastery as ‘a square place with high strong thick walls with only a couple of windows, and it has only two doors that are not very big’.27 The Limbourg brothers did not just depict the building as it appeared to contemporary pilgrims, they also depicted the characteristics of its surroundings with the bare and extremely steep mountains (illus. 6). ‘The monastery’, says Anselm Adornes who visited the cult site in 1470-71, ‘is situated at the foot of Mount Sinai amidst mountains at the extremity of a narrow plane; it also finds itself surrounded on three sides by very large mountains.’28 In fact, the mountains around the monastery are so steep, reports another pilgrim, that if a person should stand in front of the building and look up, it would seem like the mountains round it would fall on it.29 The illuminators also depicted the pilgrimage route along dangerous passage ways. Journals describe this route, the only way to reach the cloister, relating how the pilgrims had to cross a narrow pass in the mountain, until they reached a plane – surrounded by the above-mentioned high mountains – where they would finally descry the monastery. The pilgrims in the miniature are just entering such a gorge on their long way to the cult site. The Limbourg brothers must have known and used drawings and other models of the building and its surroundings when they painted the miniature. Still, the image was never intended to be an actual portrait of the monastery with a clear depiction of the different parts of the building. It does not show every detail. The edifice is relatively small in comparison to the Grande Chartreuse for example (illus. 4 and 5). A large part of the building remains hidden behind a large mountain in the foreground. The Limbourgs rather depicted the essence of the site. They accentuated the austere exterior and the desolated
27 AmbrosiusZ eebout, Tvoyage van Mher Joos van Ghistele (Hilversum 1998), p. 242. 28 Anselme Adornes, Itinéraire d’Anselme Adorno en Terre Sainte (1470-1471), eds. Jacques Heers & Georgette de Groer (Paris 1978), p. 225. 29 MalcolmL etts, The pilgrimage of Arnold von Harff knight (Wiesbaden 1967), p. 140.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
101
. Le portrait du Mont Sinai, print from the edition Les observations de plusieurs singularitez, . From: Mahfouz Labib, Pèlerins et voyageurs au Mont Sinaï (Caire ), pl. VI.
atmosphere of the monastery that is described in contemporary pilgrim’s journals. The miniature shows its desolateness and secludedness instead of its splendor and grandeur. By keeping the monastery small and partially disguised by the mountains, the Limbourg brothers stressed the inaccessabilty of the building and the toughness of the pilgrimage route. The object of the miniature is not topographical accuracy, but the labour of pilgrimage. Most of the time, scholars stress the novelty and the extravagance of the elaborate picture cycles with minimal text in the Belles Heures. Undoubtedly, the duke and later owners enjoyed their beauty. This doesn’t alter the fact that the cycle has a devotional value as well. The picture cycle presents Catherine as an exempla, a role model for a pious life. The cycle gives the viewer the opportunity to follow Catherine’s example and contemplate the virtues of the saint by studying the events that leaded up to her death. Pilgrims who visited the monastery on Mount Sinai usually came from the city of Alexandria where they visited the locations where Catherine lived, where she was held prisoner, tortured and eventually beheaded. When the pilgrims left for Mount Sinai they actually followed the path that Catherine covered when the angels moved
102
hanneke van asperen
her body to Mount Sinai. The devotee, looking at the picture cycle, could contemplate the same events of Catherine’s Life and Passion leading up to the translation of her relics. In the miniature cycle, the physical pilgrimage and the contemplations of the devotee are intertwined. Both ways lead to the same high point: Mount Sinai. The final miniature gives the pious beholder the opportunity to join in his mind the group of pilgrims moving towards the monastery with the relics, in order to venerate Saint Catherine. Pilgrimage obviously plays an essential role in the picture cycle. The pilgrims in the last picture are not just another life-like detail, that makes the work of the Limbourg brothers so pleasing. By adding the pilgrims and the monastery, the illuminators accentuated the theme of pilgrimage, linking the spiritual contemplations on the Life and Passion of Saint Catherine with the physical pilgrimage to Mount Sinai.
Badges of Saint Catherine The later owner elaborated on the element of pilgrimage by the addition of badges. It is tempting to insinuate here that the pilgrims’ badges must have originated from a cult site of Saint Catherine, Mount Sinai even. Pilgrims could buy souvenirs there. At first, this were mainly small flasks with healing oil that came from the relics of Catherine, mentioned in the caption of the miniature. Later, pilgrims could obtain pieces of silk that had been in contact with the relics.30 Many travellers brought their own rosaries, jewelry, and crosses with the same purpose, to touch the relics hoping that some of the miraculous powers were transferred to the objects.31 Other sources mention badges from the monastery of Saint Catherine. In Pier’s Ploughman’s Vision for example, a pilgrim is introduced wearing ‘signes of Synay’ on his hat.32 Of course, Catherine was not just venerated on Mount Sinai. Her popularity spread rapidly. In the eleventh century, a monk of Sinai brought a fragment
30 Adornes, op. cit. (n. 28), p. 227. 31 Adornes, op. cit. (n. 28), p. 227 and Letts, op. cit. (n. 29), p. 142. 32 Charles Roach Smith, ‘On pilgrims’ signes and leaden tokens’, in: Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 1 (1846), pp. 201-2, Paul Perdrizet, ‘De la Véronique et de Sainte Véronique’, in: Seminarium Kondakovianum (Recueil d’Etudes. Archéologie, histoire de l’art, études byzantines, 5; Prague 1932), pp. 1-15 (p. 5), and Robert W. Lightbown, Mediaeval European Jewellery with a catalogue of the collection in the Victoria & Albert Museum (London 1992), p. 194. Dee Dyas read ‘signes of Syse’ meaning Assisi. Dee Dyas, Pilgrimage in medieval English literature (Cambridge 2001), p. 155.
traces of pilgrimage in the BELLES HEURES of jean de berry
103
of the relics to Rouen as a gift to the duke of Normandy.33 The sanctuary there eventually took the name of the saint: the convent of Sainte-Catherine-duMont. Situated on a hill, the design undoubtedly referred to Mount Sinai. Another famous pilgrimage site was Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois (near Tours). Pilgrims came flocking in 1375 when a man was miraculously cured after being paralyzed for seven years. Naturally, this incident gave rise to other marvels. The miracle book of the cult site describes over two hundred miraculous stories that happened at Fierbois through the intercession of Saint Catherine. The saint was often called upon for help during battle and invoked by prisoners, probably because of her most important attribute: the sword. Philip of Artois went to Mount Sinai after his emprisonment in Cairo to thank Catherine for his release. Philip the Bold (d. 1404) visited Fierbois to thank Catherine after his victory at the Flemish town of Westrozebeke in 1382. Like Mount Sinai, Fierbois was popular with knights and other people of high social standing, as Saint Catherine was thought to be of a noble family. In 1450, Isabelle of Portugal, duchess of Burgundy, ordered an expensive golden badge of SainteCatherine-de-Fierbois, of twenty five sols.34 Also René of Anjou, Yolande of Aragon’s son, visited Saint Catherine of Fierbois, probably more than once. On 20 July 1451, he bought a number of gold and silver badges from Jehan Juliot, a goldsmith in Sainte-Catherine, at a price of ten livres.35 René bought three large gold badges for himself, his wife and their daughter Yolande, six small ones for his chamberlains, a silver ‘burlette’ – that is a small pendant – with the Life of Saint Catherine. On top of this, he bought two dozen large silver badges to give the gentlemen and ladies of the household and four dozen small ones to give to the officers. The owner of the Belles Heures could have been one of the visitors of Fierbois, so popular with the French nobility. However, pilgrimage sites of Catherine were manifold. Even though a badge of Catherine – from Mount Sinai, SainteCatherine-du-Mont or Sainte-Catherine-de-Fierbois or some other cult of Catherine – would seem an appropriate addition to the manuscript, the images in the Belles Heures are unrecognizable. The badges cannot be attributed to a specific pilgrimage site. Any badge would have been appropriate, because of the association of the miniatures with pilgrims and pilgrimage.
33 Jacobus de Voragine, op. cit. (n. 24), p. 339, Denis Bruna, Enseignes de pèlerinage et enseignes profanes (Paris 1996), pp. 123-4 and Katherine J. Lewis, ‘Pilgrimage and the Cult of St. Katherine of Alexandria in Late Medieval England’, in: Pilgrimage Explored, ed. J. Stopford (York 1999) pp. 146-8. 34 Comte De Laborde, op. cit. (n. 12), vol. 3: 3, p. 354, no. 6737. 35 ArnaudD’ Agnel, Comptes du roi René, vol. 1 (Paris 1910), p. 286.
104
hanneke van asperen
Traces of Devotion In the Grandes Heures as in the Belles Heures, the owner chose a miniature to add the badges to. In both cases, the miniatures are devotional images rather than illustrations of a text, they were incentives for contemplation. The miniature of the Apocalyptic Virgin in the Grandes Heures is a single-leaf image. The smudges and discolorations left by touch indicate its value as an instrument for contemplation. The image does not just illustrate the text at hand. On the contrary, the prayer texts were written to accompany the precious image of the Virgin. The miniature cycle in the Belles Heures on the other hand serves as an incentive for the contemplative thoughts on the Life and Passion of Saint Catherine. Here also, the text supports the image, not the other way around. With the addition of the badges, the owners elaborated on the iconography and accentuated elements of own choice to give the book a personal slant. In the Grandes Heures, the devotee introduced a community of saints around the image of the Madonna, creating a vision of Paradise. In the Belles Heures, the owner-pilgrim elaborated and expanded on the element of pilgrimage that is firmly embedded in the picture cycle of Saint Catherine. The miniatures give the devout reader the opportunity to follow in Catherine’s footsteps and contemplate the events of her life and death, not unlike a pilgrim visiting the sites where Catherine lived and had died. Reflecting the exemplary journey of the pilgrims in the final miniature, the owner of the Belles Heures added the memory of an individual pilgrimage, adding a private and individual chapter to the book. In a way, the owner joined the travellers in the miniature of the Limbourg brothers. Many things remain uncertain about the whereabouts and users of the Belles Heures (as well as the Grandes Heures for that matter) and many things are left to guesswork: the identity of the person who added the badges (possibly a member of a French noble family), the images on the badges (perhaps Catherine), and, a related problem, the site of pilgrimage where the badges must have originated (Mount Sinai, Sainte-Catherine-du-Mont, Fierbois or another place even?). But even without an identification, the imprints are a fine example of the devotional practice to attach badges to books of hours. The owner used the badges to give a personal twist to the images of the book, so that it fitted his pious intentions even better. The imprints illustrate the purpose of the book as an instrument of devotion rather than a precious object intended solely for admiration.
Was kann man aus den Belles Heures über die Limburgs lernen?1
Eberhard König
Freie Universität Berlin, Germany
Nach der publikumswirksamen Ausstellung im Museum het Valkhof in Nimwegen 20052 und den Publikationen vor allem der beiden vorausgehenden Jahre,3 liegen die Belles Heures vor uns so offen wie noch nie. Dabei war das Buch, nachdem es vor dem Zweiten Weltkrieg kaum einmal eingesehen werden durfte und nicht einmal in Abbildungen verfügbar war,4 vor allem durch die ausgezeichnete Publikation von Jean Porcher aus dem Jahre 1953 schon gut bekannt.5 Gefeiert wurde mit ihr, dass das Werk nicht durch die deutschen Besatzer zerstört war, und vielleicht auch verschleiert, dass das Manuskript die gesamte schlimme Zeit über in der Pariser Nationalbibliothek gelegen haben mag.6 Porchers originalgroße Reproduktionen halfen Frankreich und Europa
1 Mein Beitrag wird hier nicht in der Fassung gedruckt, die ich beim Kolloquium vorgetragen habe; gerade die Begegnung mit den beiden Machern der Nimwegener Ausstellung hat Reflexionen in Gang gebracht, die zugleich zeigen, wie wir doch auch in der Lage sind, Dinge in neuem Licht zu sehen. Für Anregungen und Hilfe sei Laura Schmidt gedankt. 2 De Gebroeders Van Limburg. Nijmeegse Meesters aan het Franse Hof 1400-1416, hrsg. von Rob Dückers & Pieter Roelofs (Ausst. Nimwegen, Museum het Valkhof, 28. August-20. November 2005; Nimwegen 2005). 3 Siehe zuletzt: Eberhard König, Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. Acc.No.54.1.1. Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Cloisters Collection, New York (Begleitband zur Faksimile-Edition; Luzern 2003); sowie ders., Die Belles Heures des Duc de Berry (Stuttgart 2004). 4 Christopher de Hamel, The Rothschilds and Their Collections of Illuminated Manuscripts (London 2005), S. 38ff., berichtet, dass Millard Meiss im Jahre 1936 bei den Pariser Rothschilds gleichsam heraus geworfen wurde, als er nach Besichtigung der Handschriftenbestände um Photoerlaubnis bat. 5 JeanP orcher, Les Belles Heures de Jean de France, Duc de Berry (Paris 1953). 6 Das vermutet zumindest Christopher de Hamel, op. cit (Anm. 4), S. 53. Die deutschen Besatzer sollen bei der Beschlagnahme von Kunstgütern den nationalen französischen Institutionen (so auch dem Louvre) jeweils einen Bruchteil der Beute überlassen haben (was nach dem Kriege nicht in jedem Fall offen gelegt wurde).
106
eberhard könig
zugleich, den bevorstehenden Export in die Vereinigten Staaten besser zu verschmerzen, wo das New Yorker Metropolitan Musem mit dem Geld der Rokkefeller den Schatz erwarb. Der vollständigen Wiedergabe in Schwarzweiß folgte das mit ordentlichen Farbabbildungen versehene Teilfaksimile, das Millard Meiss mit Elisabeth Beatson 1973 kommentiert hat und in dem John Plummer eine technische Analyse des Kodex beisteuerte, die beeindruckt, weil der Band doch recht eng gebunden war und deshalb die Kollationierung erschwerte.7 Das Original war in New York nie leicht zu studieren, von den wechselnden Doppelseiten abgesehen, die Besucher in einer Vitrine zu Gesicht bekamen. Die Cloisters an der Nordspitze von Manhattan sind schließlich keine Bibliothek; und schon das Buch aus der Vitrine zu holen, war nie einfach. So bot die Ausbreitung von zehn Doppelblättern in Nimwegen auch für die meisten Kenner der Materie eine seltene Chance, Malereien der Belles Heures zu sehen.8 Da es hier darum gehen soll, was man aus dem Stundenbuch in New York über die Limburgs lernen kann, ist nur kurz auf die grundlegenden Einwände einzugehen, die Herman Colenbrander seit 1989 wiederholt und nun auch in seiner umfangreichen Dissertation vorgebracht hat.9 Die Belles Heures spielen nämlich bei ihm kaum eine Rolle, weil er sich in seinem Kampf gegen die Zuweisung der Très Riches Heures an die historisch verbürgten Brüder Limburg aus Nimwegen auf das Manuskript in Chantilly konzentriert. Unter
7 Millard Meiss & Elisabeth H. Beatson, The Belles Heures de Jean Duc de Berry in the Cloisters New York (New York 1974); siehe auch ders., The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry, Bd. 3 (New York, etc. 1974). 8 Zuvor hatte man sich im Jahr 2004 bei den französischen Ausstellungen zur Kunst um 1400 bereits einige Blätter anschauen können: Paris 1400. Les arts sous Charles VI, hrsg. von Elisabeth Taburet-Delahaye mit François Avril (Ausst. Paris, Louvre, 22. März-12. Juli 2004), Nr. 188; L’art à la cour de Bourgogne. Le mécénat de Philippe le Hardi et de Jean sans Peur (1364-1419), hrsg. von Stephen N. Fliegel & Sophie Jugie (Ausst. Dijon, Musée des Beaux-Arts, 28. Mai-15. September 2004; Cleveland, Museum of Art, 24. Oktober 2004-9. Januar 2005), Nr. 12; siehe auch Eberhard König, ‘Frankreich feiert das Mittelalter’, in: Kunstchronik, 2005, S. 88-105. 9 Herman Th. Colenbrander, Op zoek naar de Gebroeders Limburg. De Très Riches Heures in het Musée Condé in Chantilly, Het Wapenboek Gelre in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I in Brussel en Jan Maelwael en zijn neefjes Polequin, Jehannequin en Herman van Limburg (Amsterdam 2006; Proefschrift, Amsterdam); siehe zuvor ders., ‘The Limbourg Brothers, the Miniaturists of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry?’, in: Masters and Miniatures, Proceedings of the Congress in Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands, Utrecht 10-13 December 1989, hrsg. von Koert van der Horst & Johann Chr. Klamt, Doornspijk 1991, S. 109-16, und bei weiteren Gelegenheiten. Für die Überlassung der Proefschrift und von Sonderdrucken seiner Arbeiten sei Herrn Colenbrander hier herzlich gedankt.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
107
dem Vorbehalt von Colembranders Forschungen müsste man dennoch so lange von den so genannten Limburgs oder von den Meistern von Chantilly ms. 65 sprechen, bis die Angelegenheit geklärt ist. Gegen ihre geldrische Herkunft führt der holländische Kollege den hohen Anteil des Italienischen im Œuvre jener Maler, die man allgemein als die Limburgs akzeptiert, ins Feld. Gerade die große Kunst aber war in jener Zeit erstaunlich international ausgerichtet, sprechen wir doch sogar weltweit von der Internationalen Gotik um 1400.10 Spitzfindig könnte es immerhin heißen: Was kann man aus den Belles Heures über die Meister der Trés Riches Heures lernen? Die aber hätten, wenn sie aus Italien stammten, erstaunlich viel Nördliches in ihre Kunst aufgenommen.
Der Randschmuck zwischen Norden und Süden Zunächst einmal sollte nachgeholt werden, was in meinen Publikationen zur Faksimilierung ebenso wie im Katalog zur Nimwegener Ausstellung versäumt wurde: Allen Farber wäre zu nennen gewesen, weil er sich wie kein anderer mit den Dornblattranken auseinandersetzte. Dieser amerikanische Kollege hat Verknüpfungen mit anderen Handschriften aufzeigen können und damit der Einordnung der Belles Heures ein solideres Fundament gegeben.11 Ihm gelang es, Hände innerhalb des Randschmucks zu scheiden; im Ergebnis aber hat Farber nur noch bessere Gründe für die schon vorher allgemein akzeptierte Datierung um 1408 beigesteuert.12 Über die Frage, wie sich die Limburgs als Bildermaler, also ‘historieurs’, zu den ‘enlumineurs’ des New Yorker Kodex verhalten, müsste weiter nachgedacht
10 In meiner sicher nicht glücklichen Rezension der Nimwegener Ausstellung, die den Organisatoren wohl doch nicht gerecht wird, spielt dieser Aspekt im Zusammenspiel der Meinungen von Colenbrander und Victor M. Schmidt eine gewisse Rolle, cf. Eberhard König‚ ‘Die Belles Heures des Herzogs von Berry, Probleme und Kontroversen. Aus Anlaß der Ausstellung De Gebroeders Van Limburg. Nijmeegse Meesters aan het Franse Hof (1400-1416), Nijmegen: Museum het Valkhof 2005. Katalog hrsg. von Rob Dückers und Pieter Roelofs’, in: Kunstchronik, 2006, S. 225-37. 11 Unter anderem: Allen S. Farber, ‘Considering a Marginal Master: The Work of an Early Fifteenth Century Parisian Manuscript Decorator’, in: Gesta 32, 1 (1993), S. 21-39; auf die Forschungen dieses amerikanischen Kollegen hat nur François Avril regelmäßig hingewiesen. 12 Diese Datierung haben Millard Meiss und Sharon Off erarbeitet (‘The Bookkeeping of Robinet d’Estampes and the Chronology of Jean de Berry’s Manuscripts’, in: Art Bulletin 73 (1971), S. 225-35, bes. S. 228 und 233; das auch wiederholt in Meiss op. cit. (Anm. 7), sowie Meiss & Beatson op. cit. (Anm. 7)).
108
eberhard könig
werden. Dabei enthält die Chronologie des Buchschmucks ihre Tücken: Die Belles Heures bieten ein Novum, sind sie doch das älteste datierte Beispiel für geschlossene Teppichwirkung des in Blattgold ausgeführten Dornblatts, das bei den einfachen Textseiten ohne Farben auskommt.13 Im gleichen Zeitraum, gerade um die Jahre 1408/09 aber entstanden Handschriften ganz anderer Prägung: Der buntfarbige Blattschmuck, den man in nicht ganz zutreffender Terminologie Akanthus nennt, war aus Italien über Prag gerade in jenen Jahren endlich doch in die französische Hauptstadt gelangt, die sich zu jener Zeit im Ornamentalen erstaunlich konservativ zeigte.14 Akanthus setzte sich 1408 zum ersten Mal in einem Pariser Stundenbuch triumphal durch: Douce 144 der Oxforder Bodleian Library.15 Gleichzeitig aber ließ der Herzog von Berry in seinen Grandes Heures,16 dem größten bekannten Stundenbuch, einen schon drei Generationen alten Schriftdekor aus einem der kleinsten, dem Stundenbuch der Jeanne d’Evreux, die neben den Belles Heures in den Cloisters liegen, nachahmen. Dazu ließ er um die Textfelder der mit spaltenbreiten Bildern versehenen Seiten herum Bordüren malen, wie sie schon vor 1402/03 im Brüsseler Stundenbuch vorkommen, dort aber nur um die textlosen Bildseiten.17
13 Zu den Ausnahmen gehören die einzelnen Horenanfänge im Marien-Offizium (mit Ausnahme der Matutin) und Seiten wie die Eröffnung der Horen des Heiligen Kreuzes , f. 80; dort beweisen die Limburgs ihre Fremdheit zum Pariser Brauch, indem sie eine eher altmodische Form zur Auszeichnung der Inicipits vor die moderne der einfachen Textseiten stellen. Eine Sonderrolle spielen auch die Seiten mit leer gebliebenen Aussparungen; auf einer von ihnen, f. 27, konnte Margaret Lawson die Vorzeichnung eines Engels nachweisen. 14 Man denke nur an die Pariser Zurückhaltung, was die Einführung des von den Parlern in Prag entwickelten Flamboyant in gebauter Architektur und in der Zierarchitektur von Kleinkunst und Bildern betrifft – siehe die Anstöße zu entschiedener Spätdatierung bei Philippe Plagnieux im Paris 1400, op. cit. (Anm. 8), S. 80f. 15 Paris 1400, op. cit. (Anm. 8), Nr. 185 mit weiterer Lit. vor allem Millard Meiss, The Boucicaut Master (French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry II; London etc. 1968), passim, und Charles Sterling, La peinture médiévale à Paris, 1 (Paris 1987), S. 346 ff., sowie Gabriele Bartz, Der Boucicaut-Meister. Ein unbekanntes Stundenbuch (Illuminationen. Studien und Monographien, hrsg. von Heribert Tenschert, 1; Ramsen etc. 1999), S. 121, und Albert Châtelet, L’Âge d’or du manuscrit à peintures en France au temps de Charles VI et les Heures du maréchal Boucicaut, (Paris und Dijon 2000), S. 162,164. 16 Paris, BnF, Ms latin 919 – das Blatt mit der Kreuztragung war in Nimwegen die Nr. 111. 17 Siehe meinen Beitrag ‘Archaïsme et Innovation dans les livres d’heures du duc de Berry’, in: Actes du colloque Charles VI, Paris und Dijon 2004 (Paris 2006), S. 21-40; abweichend von der communis opinio wird das Brüsseler Stundenbuch datiert von Gerhard Schmidt, in: Heures de Bruxelles. Ms. 11060-61. Bibliothèque Royale Albert Ier. Bruxelles, hrsg. von Bernard Bousmanne u.a. (Luzern 1996), S. 61-132, bes. S. 107-8.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
109
Die Chronologie lässt sich in dieser Zusammenschau aus den Jahren 1408/09 nicht mit kennerschaftlichem Datieren begreifen. Man meint ja allgemein, Dornblattdekor gehe dem Akanthus voraus; die Reinheit in den Belles Heures aber markiert mit den einfachen Tintenlinien und der vereinheitlichten Form eine neue Stufe der Entwicklung und nimmt in ihr nur einen extrem kurzen Moment ein; denn schon im Boucicaut-Stundenbuch, das Millard Meiss und ihm folgend Inés Villela-Petit um 1407 bzw. um 1408 datieren, gibt es in den Ecken Akanthus.18 Dabei tragen die Limburgs in der New Yorker Handschrift selbst zur Verwirrung bei, bieten sie doch mit der Bordüre auf f. 30, ein ganz entgegen gesetztes Novum: den ältesten rechteckig gerahmten vollfarbigen Randschmuck nördlich der Alpen. Inspiriert von der Porta della Mandorla des Florentiner Doms,19 ersetzt das Blattwerk um das Verkündigungsbild einen zunächst ausgeführten Dornblattschmuck. Einer der Limburgs verrät damit eine frische Inspiration aus Italien, die während der Illuminierung des Buches die Limburgs erreichte und eher Einblick in die Pläne oder die laufende Arbeit als das Studium dieses erst 1414 vollendeten Monuments verrät. In schöner Paradoxie bildet diese Anleihe aus Italien den Ausgangspunkt für die berühmten Bordüren, die in den Niederlanden den Meister von 1482 und die Maler um Maria von Burgund berühmt machen sollten.20 Im niederländischen Kontext sieht die Forschung solche Bordüren zum Teil auch nur deshalb als etwas einzigartig Neues, weil man die französischen Vorstufen wie das Stundenbuch der Marguerite d’Orléans, das seinerseits an die Belles Heures anschließt, nicht zur Kenntnis genommen hat.21 Die drei Brüder Limburg brachten also Bewegung in das künstlerische Geschehen ihrer Zeit: Sie waren in Paris und in der Buchmalerei fremd; das machte sie frei, verschiedene Aspekte genial zu verbinden: Den Goldranken
18 Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, Ms. 2: Meiss 1968 (wie Anm. 15), passim; Villela-Petit in: Paris 1400, op. cit. (Anm. 8), Nr. 172. Die Verwendung des Akanthus bietet einen von mehreren Gründen, die Datierung der Handschrift noch einmal neu zu überdenken! 19 Darauf hat zum ersten Mal Friedrich Winkler hingewiesen, ‘Paul de Limbourg in Florence’, in: Burlington Magazine 56 (1930), S. 95f. 20 Siehe zuletzt, Illuminating the Renaissance, hrsg. von Thomas Kren & Scot McKendrick (Ausst.-kat.; London 2003), passim; sowie, dort nicht recht benutzt, Eberhard König (mit Beiträgen von Fedja Anzelewsky, Bodo Brinkmann und Frauke Steenbock), Das Berliner Stundenbuch der Maria von Burgund und Kaiser Maximilians (Lachen am Zürichsee 1998), passim. 21 Paris, BnF, Ms latin 1156B: Eberhard König, Les Heures de Marguerite d’Orléans, übersetzt von François Boespflug (Paris 1991); ders., Das Provost-Stundenbuch. Der Meister der Marguerite d’Orléans und die Buchmalerei in Angers (Illuminationen. Studien und Monographien, hrsg. von Heribert Tenschert, 4; Ramsen etc. 2002).
110
eberhard könig
wie auch dem Einsatz der Metalle in den Bildern muss die Ausbildung bei einem Pariser Goldschmied zugute gekommen sein, die wenigstens zwei der Brüder zeitweise erhielten. Mit Italien mag sie zunächst nur jugendliche Neugier verbunden haben. Für Millard Meiss stand angesichts der Anleihen, die er im Œuvre fand, fest, dass wenigstens einen von ihnen – er denkt an Paul – eine Reise dorthin führte. Selbst wenn Victor Schmidt im Nimwegener Katalog gegen eine Reise über die Alpen argumentiert, kommt auch er nicht umhin, noch einen neuen Hinweis auf Vertrautheit mit dem Trecento zu liefern: ein Täfelchen von Ambrogio Lorenzetti, das die Martinsminiatur in den Belles Heures (f. 169) vorzubereiten scheint.22 Italien also war in den Köpfen der Brüder aus Nimwegen – als Kunde von einem fernen Land, aus dem sie Zeichnungen und Objekte kannten, oder gar aus persönlicher Erfahrung. Dafür spräche insbesondere die Veränderung ausgerechnet der Hauptminiatur in den Belles Heures.
Ästhetische Qualität im Widerspruch zu verlässlicher Arbeit Zum Studium des Textes blieb bisher aus den genannten konservatorischen Gründen kaum Zeit. Er ist, wie in Prachthandschriften üblich, nicht von der besten Qualität; die Schreiber haben zuweilen, um den Zeilenausgleich zu erreichen, Buchstaben wie i, n und m eingefügt, um sie sogleich durchzustreichen. Wegen der Verwechselbarkeit der Zeichen wirkt es dann oft so, als stehe das durchgestrichene i als Kürzel für das lateinische Wort et, wo nur ein Füllsel gemeint ist. Das hat mit den Limburgs nicht viel zu tun; denn deren Aufgabe lag sicher nicht darin, das mürbe Latein eines Schreibers zu prüfen. Doch mag es mehr als ein Zufall sein, dass auch dessen Arbeit offenbar an der Schönheit und nicht an der Korrektheit gemessen wurde. Deshalb hat er nur selten vorsichtig einen Buchstaben, aber so gut wie nie ein ganzes Wort korrigiert.23 Für die Limburgs interessanter wird es, wenn man zu Beginn der Suffragien auf Partien stößt, die nachgerade unsinnig sind; so heißt es gleich zu Beginn des Trinitäts-Suffragiums am Seitenwechsel von f. 155 Recto zu Verso ‘O Beata et benedicta trini/riosa trinitas’. Im Gebet folgt die Formel ‘Omnipote(n)s sem22 Victor M. Schmidt, ‘The Limbourgs and Italian Art’, in: De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (Anm. 2), S. 179-207, bes. S. 184f. mit Abb. 10-11; die farblich allerdings völlig abweichende Tafel befindet sich in der Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven. 23 Selbst beim Lesen fallen solche Korrekturen wie zum Beispiel im falschen Plural edebant, f. 153v. links, 3. Zeile, der zum Singular edebat gemacht wird, kaum auf.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
111
piterne deus qui dedisti famulis et famulabus tuis . . . inpotenciam maiestatis adorare’. Nach dem Schreibfehler, bei dem vergessen wurde, dass auf Recto schon der Wortbeginn von trinitas statt der Anfangsbuchstaben von gloriosa steht, wirkt die Aufforderung an den allmächtigen ewigen Gott, der seinen Dienern und Dienerinnen (deren Femininum grammatikalisch kühn bezeichnet wird!) gegeben habe, die Ohnmacht oder Machtlosigkeit der Majestät anzubeten, geradezu wie ein Hohn. Tatsächlich findet sich eine korrekte Version desselben Gebets in der Messe zu Trinitatis auf f. 204v.: Da lautet die Wortfolge ‘in potentia maiestatis adorare unitatem’, also ‘in der Macht der Majestät die Einheit anzubeten’. Angesichts der Fehler auf f. 155v. verwundert es nicht, dass auch das folgende Gebet alles andere als korrekt abgeschrieben ist; denn dort heißt es erst im Präsens wir loben dich, dann im Perfekt wir haben dich gepriesen, und der Anschluss von Gloria in Ewigkeit will auch dem Lateiner nicht so recht gefallen. Schließlich beweist der Schluss dieser Passage, wo die Bitte lautet, dass wir, die wir durch die Last unserer Sünden niedergedrückt werden, Erlass der Sünden zu erhalten verdienen: ‘ut q(ui) pec(cat)orum n(ost)roru(m) pond(er)e premimur scelera indulgencia consequi mereamur’. Wie da die Sünden scelera und der Plural für Erlass indulgencia grammatikalisch gleich gestellt sind, kann nur erstaunen.24 Nicht nur diese Häufung von Fehlern fällt am Beginn der Suffragien auf. John Plummer, dessen Kollationierung sonst so verlässlich ist, war an dieser Stelle entgangen, dass ein ganzes Blatt weggefallen ist. Es muss Suffragien zu den ersten beiden Personen der Trinität enthalten haben, also zu Vater und Sohn, war vielleicht sogar schon von den Limburgs bemalt worden. Doch mag der Verlust bereits auf die Entstehungszeit zurückgeführt werden; er mag auf unrettbare Fehler des Schreibers zurückgeführt werden. Dem Schreiber ist sonst offenbar alles verziehen worden; die Limburgs aber waren offenbar in einer Weise als Genies geschätzt, dass bei ihnen auch der grobe Fehler durchging: Wie wenig sie von den Grundlagen der Bebilderung eines Stundenbuchs verstanden haben, wird hingegen erst langsam deutlich. Engel und Stier haben sie in den Belles Heures bei Lukas und Matthäus vertauscht, während ihnen der Adler des Johannes vertraut und der Markuslöwe möglicherweise aus Venedig geläufig war. Ihr kurzes Leben lang konnten sie
24 Siehe Eberhard König & Gabriele Bartz, Les Belles Heures du Duc de Berry. Acc.No.54.1.1. Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Cloisters Collection, New York, Transkription und Übersetzung (Luzern 2006).
112
eberhard könig
. Belles Heures, fol. : Marienverkündigung
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
113
. Très Riches Heures, fol. : Marienverkündigung
114
eberhard könig
sich nicht einmal merken, welches Attribut welchem Evangelisten zukommt; denn noch in den Très Riches Heures sollten sie die Fehler wiederholen. Eine andere Fertigkeit, die man bei Buchmalern sicher stillschweigend voraussetzte, fehlte den jungen Leuten aus Nimwegen ebenso: Sie waren unsägliche Heraldiker, wenn sie den Herzog von Berry auf f. 91 mit fleurs-de-lis auf grünem Grund ausstatteten, wo doch gleichsam jedes Kind wusste, dass die goldenen Zeichen des französischen Königshauses auf azur zu erscheinen haben. Das verwundert umso mehr, als technisch dafür eine besonders wertvolle Farbe erforderlich war. Zugleich erstaunt die Fremdheit der Heraldik, weil anders als im Französischen schon in ihrer Heimatsprache die Schilde ebenso wie die Schildereien zum schilderen, also zum Beruf der Maler gehörten.
Die Unterzeichnungen und die Probleme der Händescheidung Einen wesentlichen Beitrag zur Frage, was die New Yorker Belles Heures zum Verständnis der Limburgs oder eben der Meister von Chantilly Ms. 65 beitragen, bieten Untersuchungen in der Restaurierungswerkstatt des Metropolitan Museums, zu der die Faksimilierung Anlass gab. Erste Ergebnisse machte die verantwortliche Restauratorin Margaret Lawson im Katalog von Nimwegen publik.25 Der systematischen Forschung stehen nun Infrarot-Reflektographien zur Verfügung, in denen das Verhältnis von Zeichnung und Ausführung deutlich zu Tage tritt.26 Doch deren wichtigstes Ergebnis ermutigt nicht: Zwischen den nun lesbaren Zeichnungen und den Oberflächen der Miniaturen besteht nämlich in aller Regel eine geradezu erstaunliche Übereinstimmung. Geschichtsschreibung aber lebt von Distanz und Differenz; Wer Kunstgeschichte schreibt, ist darauf aus, Brüche in der Konzeption und Pentimenti aufzudecken. Wenige Reuezüge in den Belles Heures erkannte man schon mit dem bloßen Auge; sie sind im Faksimile selbstverständlich zu sehen und stellen sich nach allem technischen Aufwand als die entscheidenden heraus: Bei der Marter des Apostels Bartholomäus (f. 161) hat man beispielsweise einzelne Figuren verändert; eine Dornenkrone wurde auf f. 141v vorgezeichnet, blieb dann aber unter dem Grün des Grases verborgen, weil sie eine Doppelung im Bild wäre; denn Christus
25 Margaret Lawson, ‘The Belles Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry. The Materials and Techniques of the Limbourg Brothers’, in: De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (Anm. 2), S. 148-63, bes. Abb. 19-20 auf S. 162f. 26 Hiermit danke ich den Verantwortlichen, unter anderem Timothy Husband, dafür, mir die Aufnahmen zugänglich gemacht zu haben.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
115
. Belles Heures, fol. v: Antonius auf der Suche nach Paulus Eremita
116
eberhard könig
. Belles Heures, fol. : Antonius auf der Suche nach Paulus Eremita
gleich daneben trägt sie auf dem Haupt.27 Ähnlich ikonographisch sprechende Details sind mit den technischen Mitteln nicht zu Tage getreten. Wichtiger noch ist der Umstand, dass keine Eingriffe zu Tage traten, die auf Abhängigkeiten von Meister und Gehilfen schließen ließen. Das Bemerkenswerteste, was Margaret Lawson verbürgt, betrifft den Duktus der Unterzeichnung: Er verrät ihr tatsächlich drei Maler; die Eigenarten, auf die sie gestoßen ist, beschreibt sie als drei künstlerische Temperamente. Besonnenheit bestimmt Lawsons Auswertung, wenn sie, anders als Meiss und Beatson in 1974, die einzelnen Temperamente und die ihnen zugeordneten Bilder nicht mit Vornamen der Limburgs versieht. Solange nur Aufnahmen weniger Miniaturen abgebildet sind, kann weitere Forschung allein im Museum selbst ein Gesamtbild gewinnen, das dann mit den Intuitionen von Meiss abgeglichen werden müsste. Dringend nötig wirkt Händescheidung unter den Limburgs ohnehin schon deshalb nicht, weil alle drei Brüder offenbar ihr kurzes Arbeitsleben gemeinsam verbrachten und im selben Jahr 1416 starben. Zudem überzeugen sie auf den ersten Blick durch die erstaunlich gleich bleibende Qualität ihrer Arbeit, die sie zugleich so schlüssig von Nachfolgern wie dem Spitz-Meister unter-
27 Dabei ist bemerkenswert, wie wenig vertraut die Limburgs mit dem von den Franziskanern verbreiteten Kult der Dornenkrone waren: Nur in einer weiteren Passionsszene kehrt sie in den Belles Heures wieder, als Reliquie, die eine Frau bei der Kreuzabnahme birgt (f. 149). Christus trägt die Dornenkrone in den Très Riches Heures nur bei der entsprechenden Szene (f. 156v.).
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
117
scheiden lassen.28 Nur selten wird trotz der hohen Disziplin der Gegensatz zwischen verschiedenen Händen auf den ersten Blick evident: am deutlichsten beim Nebeneinander der beiden kompositorisch eng verwandten Miniaturen mit der Suche des heiligen Antonius nach dem Einsiedler Paulus, auf f. 191v. und 192. Kühn – in anderer Sicht aber unprofessionell – wirkt die Tatsache, dass die erste der beiden Miniaturen auf den Horizont verzichtet; raffiniert hingegen mag man die Abwendung des beide Male im Hintergrund rechts oben hockenden Einsiedlers auf der späteren Miniatur finden; denn nur diese Position macht verständlich, dass Antonius den Gesuchten nicht finden kann. Meiss meinte, Paul habe ‘die kräftige Figur des Heiligen’ auf f. 191v. entworfen und vielleicht auch gemalt, während dieselbe Gestalt seiner Meinung nach auf f. 192 von Jan ‘in einen würdigen Abt mit sorgfältig frisiertem Haar und seidenweichem Bart verwandelt’ wurde. Das Urteil entspricht einer an Italien orientierten Ästhetik: Moderne Augen vermag sicher die erste Miniatur stärker zu überzeugen; denn heute honoriert man die große Form; doch mögen die Zeitgenossen die Vielfalt und kleinteilige Präzision der anderen Miniatur höher geschätzt haben. Bei Meiss bildet die Benennung der einzelnen Brüder somit ausschließlich ein Werteschema ab. Immerhin könnte die Händescheidung den in den Quellen immer hervorgehobenen Paul als Meister etablieren, dem die beiden jüngeren beliebig zuzuordnen wären, weil für den Unterschied von Jan und Herman keinerlei Kriterien zu fassen sind. Die interessanteste Frage bleibt, ob und wie weit sich die drei jungen Leute in Berrys Diensten überhaupt werkstattmäßig organisiert haben. Die Limburgs stammen zwar aus einer Familie, die handwerklich orientiert war; sie waren aber eigentlich zu jung, als dass sich auch nur einer von ihnen wirklich wie ein Meister fühlen und aufführen konnte. Dass sie sich in die – im Wesentlichen außerkünstlerische – Buchproduktion in Paris kaum eingepasst haben, weiß man schon lange; und ob das aus dem niederländischen und deutschen Zunftwesen übernommene Schema von Meister und Werkstatt sozialgeschichtlich überhaupt auf Buchmaler um 1400 angewendet werden kann, bleibt eine unbeantwortete Frage.29
28 Benannt nach dem erst kürzlich vom Getty-Museum in Los Angeles erworbenen Stundenbuch, Ms. Getty 57, das auch in Nimwegen zu sehen war (De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (Anm. 2), Nr. 109). 29 Deshalb kommt ihnen auch nicht viel Raum zu in Richard & Mary Rouse, Manuscripts and Their Makers. Commercial Book Production in Medieval Paris. 1200-1500, 2 Bde. (Turnhout 2000).
118
eberhard könig
Künstlerisches Kollektiv oder Werkstatt mit Paul als ‘Meister’? Die detailgetreue Übereinstimmung der meisten nun von Margaret Lawson sichtbar gemachten Zeichnungen mit den ausgeführten Miniaturen könnte dafür sprechen, dass man die Arbeit blattweise verteilte – nicht lagenweise, wie die beiden Szenen von Antonius auf der Suche nach Paulus beweisen. Die einzelnen Bilder waren also jeweils von der Planung bis zur Fertigstellung einem der Brüder anvertraut. Daraus wäre im Verein mit der Scheidung von Unterzeichnungen zu schließen, dass die aus den Quellen sprechende Führungsrolle des ältesten Bruders Paul ihm nicht das Privileg gab, im Manuskript selbst die Miniaturen zu entwerfen, um sie von seinen Brüder ausmalen zu lassen. Der ‘Meister’, als der Paul in den Quellen erscheint, zeigt sich somit im Werk nur als Primus inter pares. Ein entscheidender Vergleich mag das erhellen: Hätte sich Paul jene Aufgaben vorbehalten, die bei der üblichen Arbeitsverteilung im Stundenbuch dem Werkstattleiter zufielen, müsste er die New Yorker Verkündigung ebenso wie die entsprechende Miniatur in Chantilly gemalt haben; denn die Eröffnung der Marien-Matutin war Sache des Meisters. Doch steht der Augenschein – und auch die Händescheidung bei Meiss, der die Hauptminiatur in den Belles Heures Paul, die in den Très Riches Heures aber Paul und Jan gibt – gegen eine solche Gleichung. Bei den Brüdern Limburg hätte somit die Bildhierarchie nicht der Hierarchie der Beteiligten entsprochen; oder die Händescheidung funktioniert doch nicht so, wie man das gerne hätte. Eine Entdeckung, die Lawson im Nimwegener Katalog veröffentlicht hat, bietet nun einen spannenden Hinweis: Die letzte Miniatur, f. 223v., zeigt ein mikroskopisch kleines P in einem Türmchen; sie könnte von Paul von Limburg signiert sein! Wenn es sich wirklich um Pauls Signatur handelt, wäre diese Miniatur der Schlüssel zu dessen Anteil am Œuvre der Limburgs. Meiss erhielte im Nachhinein ein wenig Recht; denn auch für ihn hat das Schlussbild der Belles Heures durchaus mit dem ältesten Bruder zu tun – aber nur so wie die Verkündigung der Très Riches Heures: Beide Miniaturen sind seiner Meinung nach von Paul entworfen, jedoch nicht von ihm, sondern von Jan vollendet. Zum Vergleich mit der New Yorker Verkündigung eignet sich die Szene freilich nicht besonders gut; der Augenschein lässt sogar massiv zweifeln, ob für beide Arbeiten wirklich dieselbe Hand in Frage kommt. Von der Qualität her unterscheiden sich die beiden Bilder in einer Weise, dass ein moderner Blick in Gabriel und dem Engel bereits Vorboten von viel späterer monumentaler Malerei sehen würde; an Lochners Außentafeln zum Kölner Dombild
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
119
gemahnen sie mich. Das New Yorker Schlussbild aber wirkt viel zierlicher und mag deshalb für Zeitgenossen sogar den Vorrang gehabt haben. Zugleich ergeben sich weitere Fragen: Wenn nun Jan das Schlussbild vollendete, warum hätte er in diese Miniatur des älteren Bruders Zeichen setzen sollen? Immerhin sprechen die Quellen zuweilen von Pol et ses frères. Wenn das P eine Signatur ist, die nicht vom ältesten Bruder selbst gesetzt wurde, dann haben sich die Limburgs selbst, in Analogie zu Joseph mit seinen Brüdern in Ägypten, als Paul und seine Brüder im fremden Land, Frankreich, begriffen. Warum aber wurde nur das letzte Bild signiert?
Berry und die neuen Bilder Noch mehr erstaunt, dass Berry auf dieser Miniatur keine rechte Gestalt hat, während er auf der entsprechenden Miniatur in den Petites Heures so eindrucksvoll wie sonst nur im Januar der Très Riches Heures porträtiert ist.30 Man wird den Nimwegener Herausgebern zustimmen, dass in einer der Figuren, die sich in dem New Yorker Bild von rechts auf die Burg hin bewegen, der Herzog selbst zu erkennen sein müsste. Doch schon lässt sich streiten, welcher Reiter gemeint sein mag. Der Konvention entsprechend müsste ihm der Schimmel gehören; dessen Reiter aber wird stark vom Bildrand angeschnitten. Für das Verhältnis der Miniaturen in den Belles Heures zu anderen Stundenbüchern ist das Schlussbild noch in manch anderer Hinsicht aufschlussreich: Die Darstellung ist mittig in zwei Hälften geteilt, in Burg und Reitergruppe. Zweiphasige Bilder schuf man in Italien; Frankreich erreichten sie im Oeuvre des Meisters der Cité des Dames, wo sie ab etwa 1405 heimisch wurden.31 Das würde ins Bild passen, das Meiss entwarf und das Colenbrander an der Herkunft der für die Limburgs gehaltenen Maler aus Geldern zweifeln lässt. In herkömmlichem Bildaufbau müssten die Ankömmlinge von links ins Bild treten, um rechts auf das Gebäude zu stoßen. In den Belles Heures wird die
30 Paris, BnF, Ms latin 18014, f. 288v., hinzugefügt wie das Blatt in den Belles Heures; diese Miniatur diente zu Recht als Aushängeschild der Nimwegener Ausstellung; gute Abb. auf S. 377; ihr folgt auf S. 379 eine entsprechend gute aus Chantilly, Ms. 65, f. 2. 31 Neben den zweiphasigen Frontispiz-Miniaturen zu den namengebenden Handschriften (Paris, BnF, Ms fr. 607; Brüssel, KB, Ms. 9393 u.a.) ist vor allem an die erst etwa zehn Jahre spätere Illustration des Decameron für Johann ohne Furcht zu denken (Rom, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Pal.lat.1989); zu diesem Exemplar und zu den Vorstufen im Œuvre des Malers und in Italien siehe: Eberhard König, Boccaccio: Decameron. Alle 100 Miniaturen der ersten Bilderhandschrift (Stuttgart 1989).
120
eberhard könig
. Belles Heures, fol. v: Ankunft an einem Stadttor
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
121
Leserichtung umgekehrt; und das kann drei Gründe haben: Die Reiter mögen aus einer volkreichen Kreuzigung stammen und hätten dann in fremdem Zusammenhang ihren Charakter völlig verändert. Unter Jesu Kreuz naht eine ähnliche Truppe mit dem Hauptmann in ihrer Mitte, der seinen Begleiter auf Christi Gottessohnschaft hinweist; und das geschieht gewöhnlich wie hier von rechts. Solche Klitterungen aus Bildvorlagen kannte man durchaus; der RohanStil ist dafür berühmt geworden; denn die beiden bedeutendsten Miniaturen in den Grandes Heures de Rohan stammen aus größeren Zusammenhängen.32 Volkreiche Kreuzigungen mit Reitergruppen unter dem Kreuz kennt die zeitgleiche französische Buchmalerei kaum. Die Limburgs haben nicht einmal im großen Format der Très Riches Heures für Pferde Platz (sie kommen dort erst bei Jean Colombe, also um 1485 auf ). Dasselbe gilt für die große Folge bedeutender Stundenbücher von Berrys Brüsseler Très Belles Heures bis zu den Hauptwerken der nach Boucicaut, Mazarine oder Egerton genannten Meister. Eine Ausnahme bildet das Heidelberger Missale aus der Bedford-Gruppe – übrigens mit irritierenden Anklängen an deutsche Malerei der Zeit.33 Für die deutlich später entstandenen Grandes Heures de Rohan entlehnte man sie der neapolitanischen Anjou-Bibel des 14. Jahrhunderts.34 Aus Italien wird die Idee in die deutschsprachigen Lande gekommen sein, wo zwar Altarbilder wie jenes in Bad Wildungen, das Conrad von Soest 1403 datierte, noch mit Fußvolk allein auskommen, der Kölner Meister der Heiligen Veronika aber in dem meits schon um 1400 datierten Täfelchen des Wallraf-Richartz-Museums die um 1320 von Pietro Lorenzetti in der Unterkirche von Assisi verwirklichte Vision in nordalpine Form umsetzte.
32 Ms latin 9471 der Pariser Nationalbibliothek, f. 135 (Klage unter dem Kreuz) und 159 (Toter vor Gott); die eine Personengruppe stammt aus einer volkreichen Kreuzigung in der Art von Founders 62 in Cambridge, die andere aus Bordüren zu Bildern des Toten-Offiziums; zuletzt Eberhard König, Die Grandes Heures de Rohan. Eine Hilfe zum Verständnis des Manuscrit latin 9471 der Bibliothèque nationale de France (Simbach am Inn, 2006), sowie ders., ‘Fifteenthcentury illuminations from Angers in Cambridge: the Hours of Isabella Stuart and the quest for a local style’, in: Symposium of the Fitzwilliam Museum, hrsg. von Stella Panayotova & Paul Binski (Cambridge 2007; pp. -). 33 Heidelberg, UB, Cod.Sal. IXa, f. 107v.: Armin Schlechter u.a., Vom Bodensee an den Neckar. Bücherschätze aus der Bibliothek des Zisterzienserklosters Salem in der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg (Schriften der Universitätsbibliothek Heidelberg, Band 5; Heidelberg 2003), Nr. 59 und Farbtaf. 30. 34 Paris, BnF, Ms latin 9471, f. 27, entspricht mit Ausnahme des Goldgrunds und weniger hinzugekommener Figuren der Miniatur auf f. 178v. in Ms fr. 9561 (ebenda); siehe z.B. Meiss 1974 (wie Anm. 7), Abb. 871 f.; den Bezug der beiden Handschriften zu einander hat Jean Porcher am intensivsten untersucht (‘Two Models for the Heures de Rohan’, in: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, 8 (1945), S. 1-6).
122
eberhard könig
. Fragment eines Stundenbuchs aus Rennes, Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, W , fol. : Kreuzannagelung und Kreuzigung
Den Reitern der Belles Heures kommt jedoch meiner Meinung von allen Kreuzigungsbildern das verlorene Urbild einer Komposition am nächsten, die ich hinter Miniaturen in Walters 221 in Baltimore, im Stundenbuch der Isabella Stuart, Founders 62 im Fitzwilliam Museum Cambridge und dem Stundenbuch der Marguerite d’Orléans, Ms latin 1156B in Paris, vermute.35 Deren früheste datierte Spur geht immerhin zurück bis zu den 1409 vollendeten Grandes Heures des Herzogs von Berry.36
Raffinement oder Rechts-Links-Schwäche Die ungewöhnliche Ausrichtung der Bildelemente im Schlussbild mag man auf ein bewusstes Raffinement zurückführen: Die Maler könnten absichtlich gegen die Erwartung verstoßen haben, dass jede wesentliche Bildentwicklung
35 Eberhard König, Französische Buchmalerei um 1450: Der Jouvenel-Maler, der Maler des Genfer Boccaccio und die Anfange Jean Fouquets (Berlin 1982), S. 121ff., Abb. 298, 299, 314. 36 Paris, BnF, Ms latin 919, f. 74: ebenda, Abb. 303.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
123
von links zu erfolgen habe. Sie mögen aber auch schlicht eine Rechts-LinksSchwäche gehabt haben. Zunächst scheint die Vermutung einer eklatanten Schwäche ein ungebührliches Ansinnen, angesichts der eminenten Bedeutung der Limburgs. Doch gibt es in den Belles Heures mehr als eine Miniatur, die durch das Verhältnis von links und rechts irritiert, also wenigstens zeigt, dass die Limburgs von der Gleichsetzung des Lesens mit der Logik der Bilderzählung nichts wussten oder nicht viel hielten: Das krasseste Beispiel ist die nach herkömmlicher Lesart im Bild völlig unverständliche Intrige, die den heiligen Hieronymus aus Rom vertrieben hat (f. 185v.): Dort wird links die Folge von dem erzählt, was rechts angerichtet wird. Die Leserichtung wird auch sonst gern umgekehrt: Einen Gegensinn erzeugt die Bildordnung auf f. 16, wo die von Maxentius zusammen gerufenen Philosophen sterben, ehe Katharina zu ihnen spricht, oder auf f. 20, wenn dort die Pilger bereits auf der beschwerlichen Reise zum Katharinenkloster am Sinai sind, bevor der Leib der Heiligen dort mit dem abgeschlagenen Haupt durch Engel wieder vereint wird. Dramatisch gewinnen einige Bilder, wenn beispielsweise auf f. 16v. Katharinas Einkerkerung dem Betrachter gleichsam entgegenkommt; dasselbe gilt für Faustinas Martyrium auf f. 18 oder die Ermordung der bekehrten Massen auf f. 19. Man könnte darüber nachsinnen, wie weit solche Phänomene an eine Arbeitsphase gebunden sind oder gar einen der Limburgs von seinen Brüdern unterscheiden; denn in den Geschichten von der Einrichtung der Litanei (f. 74-75v.) oder von der Gründung der Großen Kartause (f. 94-97v.) trifft man solche Probleme ebenso wenig wie in den Zyklen der Kindheitsgeschichte und der Passion, in den Geschichten von Heraklius (f. 157) oder in den Suffragien. Doch in der Legende des Kirchenvaters Hieronymus werden ganze Passagen umgedreht; das gilt nicht nur für das schon zitierte f. 184v., sondern ebenso für f. 185, wo man nicht weiß, ob mit der Seefahrt die Reise vor oder nach dem Treffen mit Gregor von Nazianz gemeint ist. Noch irritierender wirkt die Andacht des heiligen Hieronymus in der Grabeskirche zu Jerusalem auf f. 185v.: In einem eigentümlichen Zitat wachen hier die Soldaten aus der Osternacht immer noch am Grab des Herrn, der zu Zeiten des Kirchenvaters schon lange auferstanden war.
Die Erfindung der Bildformeln und die Ausmalung der Belles Heures Die Vertauschung von Links und Rechts scheint jeweils einen Eingriff in einen ersten Entwurf zu verraten. Das zeigt sich am krassesten beim Besuch der
124
eberhard könig
. Belles Heures, fol. v: Intrige gegen Hieronymus in Rom
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
125
Kaiserin Faustina in Katharinas Kerker (f. 17v.): Diese Szene erscheint wie einige andere in späteren Handschriften vollständiger als in der Fassung für den Herzog von Berry: In den Belles Heures fehlt Kaiser Maxentius; doch nur weil der zugesehen hat, wie sich die Kaiserin heimlich zur Heiligen schlich, musste Faustina in der nächsten Szene noch vor Katharina den Märtyrertod sterben. Im Spitz-Stundenbuch zwängt sich auf f. 45v. der brutale Beobachter geradezu ins Bild; das ist ästhetisch weniger elegant; ihn wegzulassen, empfahl sich also durchaus.37 Die Belles Heures erweisen sich an dieser Stelle nicht als Schöpfungswerk. So neu und revolutionär die Entwürfe der Limburgs auch in ihrer Zeit waren, so sind sie keineswegs mit der Arbeit in den Belles Heures entstanden. In den New Yorker Bildern bewegen sich die Brüder sogar bereits ein Stück weg von der Phase, in denen sie die Bilder entworfen haben!
Der zeitliche Ablauf Man kann nur annäherungsweise sagen, wann die Belles Heures entstanden sind. Meiss und Farber stimmen, wie schon gesagt, darin überein, dass 1408 ein gutes Datum ist. Freilich wird solch ein Buch nicht an einem Tage gemacht; und gerade die Jugend der Limburgs macht ihre mögliche Entwicklung bei der Arbeit an den vielen Miniaturen besonders interessant. Vom Arbeitsprozess zeugen die wenigen Spuren des Unvollendeten: Am Ende der Katharinenlegende blieb ein für Malerei grundiertes Bildfeld ohne Text leer, weil man offenbar die Zahl der erforderlichen Bilder falsch berechnet hatte – ein Unikum in der Geschichte des Stundenbuchs, das wieder die mangelnde Vertrautheit der Maler mit ihren Aufgaben verrät. Einzelne Bordüren lassen Felder frei, die nicht ausgemalt wurden. Was geplant war, zeigt auf f. 27 ein Engelchen, das in ein derart unvollendet gebliebenes Randfeld hineingezeichnet wurde. Nachträglich umgestellt wurden die beiden Lagen mit Geschichten der Altväter; zunächst hätte von Antonius und Paulus Eremita die Rede sein müssen; dann erst von Hieronymus; denn ihm verdanken wir ja die Berichte aus der Thebaischen Wüste. Von seiner prächtigeren Bordüre her erhebt auch das Eingangsbild mit der Flucht des Paulus aus Rom (f. 191) Anspruch darauf, den ganzen Block der Bilder einzuleiten; die Rubrik auf f. 182v. aber ist bereits auf
37 Siehe Abb. bei Gregory T. Clark, The Spitz Master. A Parisian Book of Hours (Los Angeles 2003), S. 17.
126
eberhard könig
. Belles Heures, fol. v: Besuch der Kaiserin Faustina in Katharinas Gefängnis
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
127
. Spitz-Stundenbuch, Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, ms. , fol. v: Besuch der Kaiserin Faustina in Katharinas Gefängnis
128
eberhard könig
das eingestellt, was man heute vor sich hat, wenn es heißt, es folgten die Messen, und zwar zunächst von Weihnachten; zuerst aber sei das Leben des heiligen Hieronymus gesetzt (‘Sequitur misse. Et primo de nativitate domini n(ost)ri ih(es)u xp(ist)i. Et primo ponitur vita beati ieronimi tota ystoriata’). Gleich mehrere wichtige Aufschlüsse ergeben sich hieraus: Der Schreiber reflektiert offenbar zunächst einmal, dass hier direkt die Messen anzuschließen hätten, dass dazwischen aber etwas geschaltet wurde, was anfangs gar nicht geplant war. Im Hinweis auf die volle Bebilderung (‘tota ystoriata’) drückt sich noch die Verwunderung über die eingeschalteten Passagen ein, die nicht dem Schreiber, sondern den Limburgs zu verdanken sind. Dabei gibt der Kopist schließlich den Stand der Dinge wieder, nachdem man entschieden hatte, die nachgetragenen Lagen umzustellen, als die Vita des Hieronymus vorzuziehen. Die Belles Heures sind, wie diese Rubrik indirekt verrät, ganz offenbar in mehreren Etappen geschaffen worden. Am Anfang stand ein recht schlichtes Konzept, das von den Haupttexten ausging, also Kalender und MarienOffizium, Bußpsalmen, Horen von Heilig Kreuz und Heilig Geist, das TotenOffizium und die Suffragien enthielt. In einem weiteren Schritt kamen dann Perikopen, Mariengebete sowie am Abschluss die Messen hinzu. Alle diese Abschnitte wurden so kopiert, dass jeder vernünftige Pariser Buchmaler zu ihrer Ausmalung in Frage gekommen wäre. Die Übergänge zwischen den Planstufen waren fließend; gekennzeichnet wird die Entwicklung durch den zunehmenden Einfluss der Limburgs. Schon bei den französischen Gebeten der XV Freuden (f. 88) und VII Klagen (f. 91v.) bestimmten die Buchmaler, was der Schreiber zu tun hatte. Ihre Rolle nahm zu bei der Aufnahme des Passions-Offiziums, das in einzigartiger Weise zur Matutin drei und zu allen anderen Horen jeweils zwei Eingangsbilder erhielt (ff. 123-54). Ganz und gar Sache der Maler waren dann die Partien, die ganz historisiert wurden; und die Verwunderung darüber reicht bis ins Inventar von 1413, wenn dort gesagt wird ‘Unes belles heures . . . et au commencement est le kalendrier, . . . et aprés est historiée la vie et passion de saincte Katherine . . .’, also die Bildervita der heiligen Katharina besonders hervorgehoben wird.38 Das Schlussbild mit dem kleinen P im Türmchen nimmt in diesem Zusammenhang eine schwer einzuschätzende Sonderstellung im Buch ein: Es ist nachgetragen; auch der Text gehört nicht zum Buchblock. Deshalb wird man die Malerei später als den Buchblock und damit die meisten Miniaturen in den Belles Heures ansetzen müssen. Unklar bleibt jedoch, ob diese Darstellung vor oder nach den eingefügten Bildergeschichten entstanden ist.
38 Voller Text beispielsweise bei König, op. cit. (Anm. 3), S. 10.
was kann man aus den BELLES HEURES über die limburgs lernen?
129
Meine nur vom Augenschein bestimmte Vermutung, das Buch enthalte an verschiedenen Stellen statt echter Bifolia am Falz kunstvoll zusammengeklebte Einzelblätter, hat Lawson nicht geprüft. Dieses Vorgehen, das ich nirgendwo sonst beobachtet habe, verrät, dass es den Limburgs offenbar auch darauf ankam, während der Arbeit eingetretene Planänderungen zu verschleiern: Die Geschichte der Litanei wird auf einem solchen falschen Doppelblatt (ff. 73/74) geschildert; f. 155, vor dem der Beginn der Suffragien Trinität fehlt, hat man mit f. 162 zusammengekleistert; auch das darin liegende Doppelblatt aus f. 156 und 161 ist nicht kohärent.
Das Ergebnis Die Belles Heures sind vermutlich bereits in fürstlicher Isolierung, im Schloß des Herzogs in Bicêtre südlich der Pariser Stadtgrenze, und nicht in der Metropole selbst entstanden. Sie sind das einzige vollendete Werk der Limburgs, wenn man vom Valerius Maximus des Vatikans absieht, der nur ein kleines Eingangbild erhielt.39 Nur die Bordüren in den Lagen mit den Evangelisten und den Messen sind teilweise unfertig. Das wurde möglich durch eine eigentümliche Arbeitsweise: Nachdem der Schreiber zunächst einmal ein geradezu banales Manuskript geliefert hatte, konnten die Limburgs im ersten Schritt zeigen, dass sie ein völlig normales Stundenbuch mit guten Miniaturen zu schmücken verstanden. Da ist nichts wirklich Herausragendes, wenn man vom künstlerischen Detail der Ausführung, beispielsweise der stillen Genialität der Verkündigungsminiatur auf f. 30 absieht. Auch die folgenden Texte konnten die Brüder aus Nimwegen nicht wirklich fordern. Erst als die Limburgs die Leitung des Projekts in die eigenen Hände nahmen, gewannen die Belles Heures jene Gestalt, für die sie berühmt sind. Im Vergleich mit den nur wenig später entstandenen Miniaturen – dem oben erwähnten Schlussbild der Petites Heures oder den Miniaturen in den Très Belles und den Très Riches Heures zeigt sich, wie stark das Format als Fessel wirkt: In den kleinen fast quadratischen Miniaturen in New York regiert die Figur, hat Landschaft kaum Platz; hier ist es die Fülle des Ähnlichen, das den Betrachter in den Bann schlägt, während die Miniaturen in Chantilly die jungen Maler dazu einluden, sich gestalterisch so weit auszubreiten, dass zugleich auch die Strenge und Klarheit des vollendeten frühen Werks verloren zu gehen drohte.
39 Rom, Bibliotheca Apostolica Vaticana, Reg. lat. 939; De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (Anm. 2), Nr. 103.
Guelders-France. Another Connection around 14001
Herman Th. Colenbrander
Independent Scholar, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Around 1396, Johan Maelwael, and his nephews some years later successively, went to France, the mightiest kingdom of the West, to seek their fortune. However, there were more connections between Guelders and France at the time. In 1404 the brother of the French king, Louis d’Orléans, arranged a marriage between Reinout, duke of Guelders and his niece Marie d’Harcourt, and 16 August of the following year she arrived at the castle of Rozendaal where she was heartedly welcomed.2 A miniature of Mary in the prayer-book the duchess had written in Dutch in 1415 was related to a drawing in Uppsala and considered as proof for the influence of the French court culture she had introduced in Guelders.3 This perception was further enhanced by a few letters exchanged between Marie and the duke of Berry.4 But also at a lower level in society there were connections. At the brutal murder attack on Louis d’Orléans on 23 November 1407, one of his écuyers who had tried to protect him, was also killed. His name was Jacob van Melkeren, born in Herssen near
1 For a full discussion of the proposition advanced here I would like to refer to my doctoral thesis upheld on 1 December 2006 at the University of Amsterdam, entitled Op zoek naar de Gebroeders Van Limburg. De Très Riches Heures in het Musée Condé in Chantilly, Het Wapenboek Gelre in de Koninklijke Bibliotheek Albert I in Brussel en Jan Maelwael en zijn neefjes Polequin, Jehannequin en Herman van Limburg. 2 Gerard Nijsten, Het hof van Gelre. Cultuur ten tijde van de hertogen uit het Gulikse en Egmondse huis (1371-1473) (2nd edn.; Kampen 1993), pp. 98-9, 269. English edition: Gerard Nijsten, In the Shadow of Burgundy: the court of Guelders in the late Middle Ages (Cambridge 2004). 3 The Prayer-book is now divided between Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42 and Vienna, Cod. 1908, the miniature in question being f. 19v. of the Berlin part, cf. De Gebroeders Van Limburg. Nijmeegse meesters aan het Franse hof 1400-1416, ed. Rob Dückers & Pieter Roelofs (Gent 2005), pp. 254-5, no. 24 (drawing in Uppsala), pp. 250-1, no. 22-3 (Prayer-book of Mary of Guelders). 4 For the correspondence, cf: Nijsten, op. cit. (n. 2: 1993), pp. 98-9.
132
herman th. colenbrander
Nijmegen. His family was later on, in 1415, compensated by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy and perpetrator of the murder.5 A further connection is the fact that Jean de Berry bought from a certain Jean de Nymègue a ring with an emerald fly in 1403 and between 1403 and 1408 he bought again from this same Jean de Nymègue a costly chessboard. An identification of Jean de Nymègue with Jehannequin of Limbourg, one of the Limbourg brothers, is unlikely because of the age of the latter. However, it has to be noted that later on, in 1413, Jehannequin inscribed himself in the guild of the Parisian goldsmiths.6 The examples put forward here deal with incidental cases, from which little can be concluded as to the broader cultural influences between Guelders and France, nor, for that matter, the reciprocal stylistic impact on, for example, the art of painting. The existing generalised opinions on these matters must be qualified as rather premature. Given the occasion here to broaden the scope somewhat, I would like to point out a hitherto unnoticed example of a connection between Guelders and France. One of the great treasures of the Royal Library at Brussels is the Wapenboek Gelre, an armorial compiled by the herald Gelre (MS 15652-56). The manuscript was mentioned and illustrated in the catalogue of the Nijmegen exhibition, but the manuscript itself could not be present since it was on display elsewhere.7 It contains a large illustration of the Emperor and his electors (illus. 1). This illustration is a lightly coloured pen drawing and is located, by way of title-page, at the beginning of that part of the armorial which contains some 1800 coats of arms of the nobility of the German Empire, the kingdom of France and other kingdoms, duchies and counties. The manuscript was never completed
5 P. Raymond, ‘Enquête du prévôt de Paris sur l’assassinat de Louis Ier du duc d’Orléans’, in: Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, 26 (1865), pp. 215-19, esp. p. 217; P. Champion, La vie de Charles d’Orléans (1394-1465), vol. 1 (Paris 1911), pp. 45-6. His name was also spelled as Jacques de Meckeren and Jacob de Merré; B. Schnerb, Jean sans Peur. Le prince meurtrier (Paris 2005), pp. 209, 233 (Archives du Nord, Lille (ADN) B 659 nr.15 294). 6 ‘Un tablier et eschaquier d’argent doré et de cristaulx, garni d’eschaz d’argent doré et blanc. . . . IIIc frans’: J. Guiffrey, Inventaires de Jean Duc de Berry (1401-1416 ), 2 vols. (Paris 1894-6), vol. 1, p. 90, no. 296, and on the 13th of September 1403 in Mehun-sur-Yèvre: ‘Un annel d’or ou il a une mouche faicte d’esmeraude. . . .’ (ibid. vol. 1, p. 123, no. 401); Ph. Henwood, ‘Les orfèvres parisiens pendant le règne de Charles VI (1380-1422)’, in: Bulletin archéologique du Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, 15 (1981), pp. 85-180, esp. p. 160; E. Kovács, ‘Hansse Melluel páriszi ötvós, 1413’, in: Müveszettörténetí éresitö, 33, 1 (1984), pp. 42-5. 7 De Gebroeders Van Limburg, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 66-7. At the time of the Nijmegen exhibition, the codex was on display in an exhibition of highlights from the Royal Library, Brussels.
guelders-france. another connection around
133
1. The Emperor and his electors, coloured pen drawing, Wapenboek Gelre, f. 26r., MS 15652-56, Koninklijke Bibliotheek, Brussels.
as numerous coats of arms were never executed; others are incomplete, often missing their crests or their legends. The part preceding the armorial proper contains texts in which the author mentioned himself several times as the herald Gelre. His portrait as a herald is also to be found in the manuscript. Van Anrooij has proven that the herald Gelre can be identified with Claes Heynenzoon who, presumably, died shortly after 1414.8 The dating of the manuscript is still problematic. In the 19th century, the conviction prevailed that the emperor depicted on the ‘titlepage’ represented Charles IV; hence it was thought the manuscript dated from around 1356. But nowadays, the manuscript is generally dated around 1400, and the idea the imperial ruler represents a contemporaneous emperor is not considered likely any more.9 As appears from the coats of arms in the manuscript the herald must have been skilled with the pen and the brush. However, the discrepancy in quality, between the way the coats of arms in the armorial are executed on the one
8 W. van Anrooij, ‘The Gelre Wapenboek and its Most Important Miniatures’, in: Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands, Utrecht 10-13 December 1989, ed. K. van der Horst & J.-C. Klamt (Doornspijk 1991), pp. 295-302. 9 G. Schmidt, ‘Das Kaiser-und-Kurfürsten-Bild im “Wapenboek” des Herolds Gelre’, in: Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte, 34 (1981), pp. 71-99, illus. 37-55.
134
herman th. colenbrander
hand, and the skilled execution of the drawing of the Emperor and his electors and the gouache with the portrait of the herald on the other, is such that in all probability the ‘title-page’ and the portrait were done by a professional artist. The names of the two older Maelwaels, Herman and Willem, were proposed though they died probably in 1397. Willem’s son, Johan Maelwael, was already in Paris by 1396 and later on he was working in Dijon in the service of the duke of Burgundy, Philip the Bold. After the death of the duke of Guelders in 1402, the herald Gelre entered the service of William of Oostervant, who succeeded his father two years later as count William VI of Holland, Seeland and Hainaut. Shortly after that the herald started to call himself ‘Beieren quondam Gelre’. Dating parts of the manuscript to the time the herald was in the service of William was considered likely by Verbij-Schillings.10 In any case the manuscript was not ordered by, nor intended for, the duke of Guelders, as all indications for this assumption are missing. It was not dedicated to the duke, nor is his coat of arms, or those of his liegemen, prominently represented in the manuscript. However, the manuscript is connected with Guelders by the person of the herald Gelre. The drawing of the Emperor and the electors in the second part of the manuscript is exceptional. As Van Anrooy has proven, the drawing is not a later insertion on a separate leaf: it is an integral part of the manuscript. As mentioned before, the drawing was intended as the ‘title-page’ of the original armorial.11 In 1952, Margaret Rickert pointed to the stylistic similarities between the drawing and a loose miniature in the Louvre with a representation of The Confessors (RF 2023v) (illus. ). The figures and the faces are fairly well matching and the infra-red photograph of the miniature (illus. ) tends to confirm Rickerts observations. The hatching at the feet of the figures looks quite the same (illus. , and ). As it seems, the drawing may be made by the same draughtsman. The miniature in the Louvre, with four other ones, comes from the so-called Hours of Turin (Turin, Bibliothèque nationale K.IV.29), a famous Book of Hours that was lost at a fire in the Royal Library in Turin in 1904. This manuscript, together with two other volumes – one originally in Milan but after 1904 donated to the Museo Civico in Turin; the other in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris (MS Nouv. acq. lat. 3093) – originally formed an HoursMissal, the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, a manuscript that was split up in
10 Het Haagse handschrift van heraut Beyeren, Hs. Den Haag, Koninklijke Bibliotheek 131 G 37, ed. J.Verbij-Schillings (Hilversum 1999). 11 Van Anrooij, art.cit. (n. 8), pp. 295-302.
guelders-france. another connection around
135
2. The Confessors, miniature RF 2023v., Musée du Louvre, Paris.
136
herman th. colenbrander
3. The Confessors, infrared photograph (by J. R. J. van Asperen de Boer and M. Faries), Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague.
three parts at an unknown date and from which the four leaves with the five miniatures were stolen some time in the 18th or the 19th century.12 One of the best known miniatures of the lost volume formerly in Turin is the Debarkment of William VI, which is often ascribed to Jan van Eyck himself, a later addition to the manuscript. This miniature, alas, is also lost. But in
12 A.H. van Buren e.a., Heures de Turin-Milan, Inv. No. 47, Museo Civico d’Arte Antica, Torino (Luzern 1996); Albert Châtelet, Jean van Eyck enlumineur. Les Heures de Turin et de Milan-Turin (Strasbourg 1993); Eberhard König, Die Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame des Herzogs von Berry. Handschrift Nouv.acq.lat. 3093, Bibliothèque nationale Paris (Luzern 1992); idem, Die Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame von Jean de France Duc de Berry. Ein Meisterwerk an der Schwelle zur Neuzeit (München 1998).
guelders-france. another connection around
137
4. Detail of illus. 3.
5. Detail of illus. 1 (left).
6. Detail of illus. 1 (right).
138
herman th. colenbrander
recent years a miniature from the burnt manuscript surfaced and was acquired by the J.Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles. James Marrow devoted a thorough study to this miniature which was also a later addition.13 All the other miniatures of the lost part in Turin are only known through the descriptions and the photographical reproductions which Paul Durrieu published in 1902, 1910 and 1922.14 The miniature of The Confessors appears to have been part of a series of miniatures illustrating the short prayers to the Saints (the Suffrages). Of these the following items will concern us here: Saint John the Baptist in the Desert (f. 56), The Patriarchs, The Prophets and Apostles (f. 57v.), Mary Magdalene at Christ’s feet in the house of Simon (f. 58), The Martyrs, Louvre (recto, illus. 8), The Confessors, Louvre (verso, illus. 2), St. Jerome in his Study Assisted by two Clerks (f. 80v.), and a Donor Praying to the Virgin and Child (f. 78v., illus. ). As for this last miniature, the prayer stool of the kneeling figure is clad with the arms of Berry, so the figure may be Jean de Berry, and this is confirmed by other portraits of the duke. Moreover, it is well known that the manuscript of the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame belonged to the duke at some moment. For that reason it is very likely the duke himself had these miniatures added to the manuscript. The period in which he had this done, can approximately ascertained: it is the time in which he had the Grandes Heures made (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale, MS lat. 919). This Book of Hours was finished in the year 1409, according to the ex-libris in the manuscript itself.15 If Jean de Berry was also the one who had replaced the calendar in the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame (in the volume now in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris), then these additions may date between 1404 and 1409, as this calendar contains the obit of his brother Philip the Bold who died on 27 April 1404.16
13 James H. Marrow, ‘Une page inconnue des Heures de Turin’, in : Revue de l’art, 135 (2002), pp. 67-76. 14 Paul Durrieu, Heures de Turin. Quarante-cinq feuillets à peintures provenant des Très Belles Heures de Jean de France, duc de Berry (reprint with a postscript by Albert Châtelet; Turin 1967); idem, ‘L’enlumineur et le miniaturiste’, in: Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. Comptes rendus des séances (1910), pp. 330-46; idem, Les Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame du duc Jean de Berry (Paris 1922). 15 Millard Meiss, French painting in the time of Jean de Berry. The late XIVth century and the patronage of the duke, 2 vols. (London 1969) [1st ed. 1967]; Marcel Thomas, Les Grandes Heures de Jean de France, duc de Berry (Paris 1971). 16 König, op. cit. (n. 12: 1992); idem, e.a., Les feuillets du Louvre et les Heures de Turin disparues, (Luzern 1994); idem, op. cit. (n. 12: 1998).
guelders-france. another connection around
139
7. Jean de Berry in prayer to the Virgin Mary and the Christ child, miniature [f. 78v.] in the Hours of Turin (lost).
140
herman th. colenbrander
On the reverse of the leaf with the miniature with The Confessors in the Louvre, one can find, quite unusually, another miniature, depicting The Martyrs, (illus. ) which is, stylistically seen, slightly different. Meiss christened the anonymous masters working on these and other miniatures in the manuscript after the subject of miniatures they worked on: ‘the Baptist Master’ and ‘the Master of the Martyrs’, but a clear distinction between the two masters is not very easily drawn. In any case, the miniature of The Martyrs (illus. and ) shows the same hand as the one showing The Pentecost in a Book of Hours in the British Library in London (MS Yates Thompson, f. 122, illus. 9), which is written according to the use of Bourges.17 This manuscript was not made for the duke, but for another unknown patron. The other miniatures in this London manuscript show the hands of the same equipe responsible for the miniatures in the Grandes Heures of the duke. This Book of Hours was qualified as the work by Jacquemart de Hodin ‘et autres ouvriers’ of the duke. It was as yet not possible to establish if the Grandes Heures and the manuscript in London were made in Bourges or Paris. In the years 1401 to 1410, Jean de Berry resided mainly in Paris. From the beginning of November 1408 until March 1409 he stayed in the Berry and the Poitou. From April 1410 onwards, he lived in the south for a longer period and did not return to Paris before November 1412. His long absence from Paris had everything to do with the conflict between the Armagnacs and the Bourguignons.18 There is, however, no reason to assume that the manuscripts under discussion had to be made under the direct supervision of the duke, nor is there any indication all these painters were in the duke’s personal service. In the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, that is to say in the part now in the Bibliothèque nationale at Paris, there is yet another series of miniatures which attracts our attention. This part, which was mainly ‘historiated’ – so to speak – by the so-called ‘Parament Master’, contains an office of the Holy Ghost which was apparently illustrated later on by another master. This illuminator, who Meiss baptised ‘the Master of the Holy Ghost’, is an impressive and fascinating artist who was responsible for the following six miniatures: The Baptism
17 Meiss, op. cit. (n. 15), pp. 328-9; Montague Rhodes James, A Descriptive catalogue of fifty manuscripts from the collection by H. Yates Thompson (Cambridge 1898), pp. 43-5, no. 9; H. Yates Thompson, Illustrations from one hundred manuscripts in the library of H. Yates Thompson. The seventh and last volume, with plates from the remaining twenty-two manuscripts (London 1918), Pls. XVI-XX, no. HYT cat. CVI, vol. IV. 18 Itinéraire of Jean de Berry, cf. F. Lehoux, Jean de France, duc de Berri. Sa vie, son action politique (1340-1416), 3 vols. (Paris 1966-8), vol. 3, pp. 423-513, esp. pp. 504-10.
guelders-france. another connection around
141
8. The Martyrs, miniature RF 2023, Musée du Louvre, Paris.
142
herman th. colenbrander
9. The Pentecost, miniature f. 122, Yates Thompson 37, British Library, London.
guelders-france. another connection around
143
10. Detail of illus. 9
11. Detail of illus. 8.
144
herman th. colenbrander
(p. 162), The Pentecost (p. 162), The Resurrection (p. 169), The Descent of the Holy Ghost on the Faithful (p. 173), The Washed, Sanctified and Justified (I.Cor.6:11) (p. 176), and The Apostles going forth to preach (p. 178). I assume, for the time being, that these miniatures were added in about the same period as the Grandes Heures were made, that is to say 1404-1409.19 For example, the typical little trees (illus. -) in both manuscripts are quite identical, and in the Pentecost-scene in the Grandes Heures, the example of the Master of the Holy Ghost in the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame was clearly followed. Meiss even discerned in The Baptism (p. 162) the hand of the so-called Baptist Master (of the first series of miniatures discussed here) and presumed a collaboration of these three masters. This seems not unlikely. However, the extraordinary characteristic heads in the miniatures by the Holy Ghost Master recall those of the electors in the drawing of the Emperor and his electors in the Guelders armorial. Typical are the upturned, broad bearded faces. This seems to suggest that we have two series of miniatures made in Paris, or maybe Bourges, which show characteristics of the drawing of the Emperor and the electors which is related to Guelders. They seem to represent a northern influence in Paris. This supposition may find a confirmation in the fact that these two series of miniatures show stylistic and iconographical similarities with works by three other masters, active in this same period, not far outside Guelders: Conrad von Soest, (illus. ) the Masters of The Golden Panels and Master Francke (illus. ). Conrad von Soest worked in Dortmund.20 The Golden Panels, now in Hannover, were made for the Saint Michael in Lüneburg.21 Master Francke worked in Hamburg but probably has been active also in Münster.22 Comparing the heads and iconography of the two series of miniatures to the works of these three masters in Germany, we see a tradition emerge that the miniatures seem to fit in. We must take into account that parts of the work by Master Francke, that have survived, date from a slightly later period (c. 1410-1414 for the Barbara altarpiece in Helsinki and 1424 for the Thomas altarpiece in Hamburg, which was commissioned in that year). But one of the few things we know about Master Francke
19 Meiss, op. cit. (n. 15). König, op. cit. (n.12: 1998). The miniatures attributed to the Holy Ghost-Master may be dated earlier. 20 B. Corley, Conrad von Soest, Painter among Merchant Princes (London 1996). 21 The Golden panels: Corley, op. cit. (n. 20), pp. 226-31. 22 Exhibited in Meister Francke und die Kunst um 1400. Ausstellung zur Jahrhundert-Feier der Hamburger Kunsthalle (Hamburg 1969); Goldgrund und Himmelslicht. Die Kunst des Mittelalters in Hamburg, Hamburger Kunsthalle, 19 November 1999-5 March 2000 (Hamburg 1999-2000).
guelders-france. another connection around
145
12. Tree, Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, The Resurrection of the death, detail, p. 169, Nouv. acq. lat. 3093, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.
13. Trees, Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, The Resurrection of the death, detail, p. 169, Nouv. acq. lat. 3093, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.
146
herman th. colenbrander
14. Tree, Grandes Heures de Jean de Berry, Lamentation of Christ, detail, f. , ms. lat. , Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.
15. Trees, Grandes Heures de Jean de Berry, Calendar, month of June, detail, ms. lat. 919, Bibliothèque nationale, Paris.
guelders-france. another connection around
147
16. Conrad von Soest, Niederwildungen Altarpiece, Stadtkirche Bad Wildungen, The Ascension of Christ, detail (reversed).
17. Master Francke, The St Barbara altarpiece, The Death of the Virgin, carved relief, detail, National Museum of Finland Helsinki.
148
herman th. colenbrander
is that he came from either the city or the county of Zutphen, in the duchy of Guelders.
Conclusion In the two series of miniatures in a manuscript owned by the duke the Berry we have traced artists who, just like the Limbourg Brothers, were working for the duke in Paris, or even in Bourges, and had ties with Guelders. The question remains: Who were they? Until further evidence comes to the surface, we can but conclude that not all the riddles of the art of painting in Guelders are solveda sy et.
A Close Encounter? The Limbourg Brothers and Illumination in the Northern Netherlands in the First Half of the Fifteenth Century
Rob Dückers
Emerson College, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
Introduction1 One of the most rewarding results one can hope for when mounting an exhibition, is that grouping together or juxtaposing works of art will bring to light new relationships that hitherto have gone unnoticed, or have not been given the prominence they deserve. The exhibition The Limbourg Brothers. Nijmegen Masters at the French Court (1400-1416), shown at Museum Het Valkhof in Nijmegen in the autumn of 2005, provided such an opportunity. In this exhibition, both the section on art in Guelders and the surrounding regions and the section on the followers of the Limbourg brothers, showed several manuscripts that incorporated compositions – or elements thereof – copied from the Limbourgs. That compositions by these formidable artists were used by illuminators in the Northern Netherlands had already been recognised and brought to attention, especially in the monumental exhibition The Golden Age of Dutch Manuscript Painting in Utrecht and New York in 1989-1990 and its accompanying catalogue. These borrowings, nevertheless, were only obvious in a few Dutch manuscripts, not all of which could be included in the Nijmegen exhibition. However, as one slowly becomes more and more familiar with the compositions by the Limbourgs over time – an opportunity I was given by Museum Het Valkhof when I was invited to co-curate the exhibition and co-edit the catalogue – one suddenly starts to notice that elements from Limbourg compositions recur in Northern Netherlandish manuscripts on a
1 This contribution is a much revised and expanded version of the paper I presented at the conference. Many of the borrowings of compositions by the Limbourgs included in this contribution I had not yet discovered at the time of the conference.
150
rob dückers
much larger scale than one would expect, and that these borrowings often have gone unnoticed in previous studies of the manuscripts in question.2 This contribution aims at drawing attention to the phenomenon that a lot of compositions by the Limbourgs – both what appear to be original compositions by the Limbourgs themselves and compositions they created using also elements borrowed from others – have entered the artistic vocabulary of illuminators, active in the Northern Netherlands in the period 1415-50, and are used in their work. To demonstrate this, a number of re-used Limbourg compositions, found in Dutch manuscripts, were identified and tabulated. The tables presented in appendix 1a-c show a total of 26 manuscripts or parts thereof from the Northern Netherlands, dating between 1415 and 1450, in which compositions or motifs borrowed from the Limbourg brothers can be traced. These borrowings vary from relatively faithful copies of major parts of a Limbourg composition to individual motifs that are copied. In between these extremities and therefore more common are those cases where illuminators use several key elements from a Limbourg composition and also copy their relative spatial setting, that is to say that the elements and figures borrowed from the Limbourg composition recur in more or less the same juxtaposition, pose and/or spatial relationship in the new composition. However, quite often in such cases, other important details in the original that would have helped to disclose the source, such as architecture, landscape features or secondary figures, are not copied at all, which makes the composition difficult to recognise as a partial copy of a Limbourg brothers’ original. The tables in appendix 1a-c cannot claim to be exhaustive. They have been compiled mainly from reproductions in the literature.3 Out of the 26 manuscripts
2 At this point, I would like to thank Dr. Patricia Stirnemann, who commented on some of the points raised during my presentation at the conference and whose remarks helped me to define points more clearly. I hope she will find at least an echo of her useful criticism in this written version. I also owe many thanks to Drs. Dorine van Heerdt tot Eversberg, who allowed me to use her 1985 unpublished Master’s thesis on the Leefdael Hours (Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26), not only confirming my suspicion of links between the work of the Limbourg brothers and the two artists who illuminated this manuscript, i.e. the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle and the Passion Master of Mary of Guelders, but also drawing my attention to parallels I had overlooked. Finally, I must express my gratitude to the curators of the manuscript collections that have enabled me to study a number of the manuscripts discussed here. I would especially like to convey my gratitude to Roger S. Wieck of the Morgan Library and Museum, New York, who not only facilitated my study of the Egmont Breviary (M. 87), but who also was very helpful in providing me with reproductions for further study. 3 In the introduction to the appendices, references to reproductions of the compositions indicated in the tables are given, so that the reader has the opportunity to reaffirm the comments
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
151
mentioned, I have only been able to study seven, plus a few fragments, in autopsy.4 Several very interesting manuscripts, that I have not as yet seen,
made. These references have been made in shortened form. A full bibliography of the titles referred to there is given here: A.W. Byvanck, De Middeleeuwsche Boekillustratie in de Noordelijke Nederlanden (Antwerp, etc. 1943); L. Delaissé, A Century of Dutch Manuscript Illumination (Berkeley, etc. 1968); F. Gorissen, Das Stundenbuch der Katharina von Kleve. Analyse und Kommentar (Berlin 1973); B. Haller, Ein Gotisches Prachtmissale aus Utrecht (Münster 1996); C. de Hamel, A History of Illuminated Manuscripts, (London 1994); K. van der Horst, Illuminated and Decorated Medieval Manuscripts in the University Library, Utrecht. An illustrated Catalogue (Maarssen, etc. 1989); J. Marrow, ‘Dutch Manuscript Illumination before the Master of Catherine of Cleves: the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle’ in: Nederlands Kunsthistorisch Jaarboek 19 (1968), pp. 51-113; Masters and Miniatures. Proceedings of the Congress on Medieval Manuscript Illumination in the Northern Netherlands (Utrecht, 10-13 December 1989), ed. K. van der Horst and J.-C. Klamt (Doornspijk 1991); P. Obbema, ‘Boeken uit het atelier. De handschriften van de 15de eeuw’, in: Kunstschrift 33/6 (1989), pp. 17-24; E. Panofsky, Early Netherlandisch Painting (New York, etc. 1971); J. Plummer, Het getijdenboek van Katharina van Kleef (2nd edn.; Amsterdam 1975); L. Randall, ‘Pea-pods and Molluscs from the Master of Catherine of Cleves workshop’, in: Apollo (1974), pp. 372-9; E. Schreiber, Niederländische Buchmalerei. Die Miniaturen des Culenborch-Missales in Brixen (Bozen 1992); The Golden Age of Manuscript Painting, ed. H. Defoer, e.a., (Stuttgart, etc. 1989); The Limbourg Brothers. Nijmegen Masters at the French Court 1400-1416, ed. R. Dückers & P. Roelofs (Gent 2005); W. de Vreese, Een Noordnederlandsch handschrift met ‘verlichterien’ uit het midden van de 15de eeuw. ‘De meester met het stompje’ (The Hague 1922). Digital images of all the miniatures in manuscripts from the Royal Library in the Hague – including the ones mentioned in the appendix – are available through www.kb.nl/manuscripts. Reproductions of the miniatures of the Limbourg brothers’ Belles Heures and Très Riches Heures are widely available, both in high quality full colour facsimiles of the entire manuscripts (published by the Faksimile Verlag Luzern), or in partial facsimiles, reproducing all the miniatures, published in several different languages and editions. For the Bible Moralisée, the only publication to date to reproduce all the miniatures by the Limbourg brothers is M. Meiss, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry. The Limbourgs and Their Contemporaries, vol. 2 (New York 1973), figs. 278-325. For the reconstruction of the lost miniature from the Belles Heures, mentioned in appendix 1a, cf. John Plummer, ‘A blank page in the Belles Heures’, in: Gatherings in honor of Dorothy E. Miner, ed. Ursula E. McCracken (Baltimore 1974), pp. 193-202 and The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit (n. 3) pp. 384-5. For the miniatures added to the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame, cf. F. Boespflug & E. König, Les ‘Très Belles Heures’ de Jean de France, duc de Berry (Paris 1998), pp. 75-81. 4 These are the Leefdael Hours (Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26), the Egmont Breviary (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.87), a detached miniature from the Egmont Breviary (Utrecht, University Library, MS 12.C.17), three Books of Hours (Rotterdam, Gemeentebibliotheek, MS 96 G 12, The Hague, Royal Library, MS 131 M 31, The Hague, Royal Library, MS 79 K 2), the London History Bible (London, British Library, MS Add. 38122) and the Speculum Humanae Salvationis (New York, New York Public Library, Spencer MS 15). I have been able to see only a few of the pages of the prayer-book of Mary of Guelders, (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42), which is currently disbound and therefore not accessible for study. This manuscript, however, seems to be extremely rich in borrowings from the Limbourgs, as will
152
rob dückers
contain illuminations that have never been reproduced. It is therefore possible, if not even probable, that in these manuscripts more borrowings from compositions by the Limbourgs are contained. And finally, manuscripts that have so far escaped my attention – and there undoubtedly will be some, if not many – will need to be added in the years to come. To thoroughly undertake a study like this would be very worth while, since it would deepen our understanding of the relationships between French illumination around the turn of the 14th to the 15th century and the Northern reception of it. Alas, to do this properly would be a painstaking task that would grossly exceed the frame of this contribution. This is also one of the reasons why a time-limit has been imposed and manuscripts after 1450 have been disregarded, another one being that in the second half of the 15th century our picture of connections between workshops and possible routes of transmission of models as they are suggested in appendix 2 becomes much less clear. Given all these flaws, however, it seems to me that for the purpose of this contribution, which is to raise awareness of the scale on which Limbourg compositions were transmitted and used or adapted by their Northern colleagues, a necessarily defective and partial listing is better than no listing at all. The only way to clearly demonstrate the findings presented here, would be to illustrate every parallel found and indicate individually the similarities and differences. This, obviously, is not possible within the constraints of a contribution like this one. In stead, a number of examples, treated per workshop, individual motif or per iconographic theme, will have to suffice.5
The First Generation: the Master of the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders, the Passion Master and the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle On St. Matthew’s Eve 1415 (i.e. 23 February of that year), Brother Helmich de Leeuw of the monastery at Mariënborn near Arnhem finished copying a prayer book for Marie d’Harcourt, better know as Mary, duchess of Guelders.6 She
become clear from appendix 1. Even though Prof. Eef Overgaauw, director of the manuscript department of the Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, has indicated that in the near future the manuscript might be rebound again to make it accessible to scholars, this is nevertheless a case where a complete colour facsimile would definitely benefit scholarship. 5 The reader, however, is encouraged to use the reproductions in the literature referred to in appendix 1 to compare source and copy and hopefully confirm the validity of the parallels indicated there. 6 As stated in the colophon on f. 410 of the manuscript. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 73, 83, n. 29.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
153
was born the daughter of count Jean VI of Harcourt and Aumale, becoming duchess in 1405, when she married Reinald IV, duke of Guelders and Jülich. Through her mother, Catherine de Bourbon, Mary was related to the French royal family, including the Limbourg brothers’ patron, Jean de France, duc de Berry. With him she corresponded and exchanged gifts, and they both shared a love – if not a passion – for beautiful books. The prayer book that Helmich copied on Mary’s instigation was to be lavishly illuminated, initially by two artists.7 The first artist, named the Master of Mary of Guelders after the portrait of the duchess he painted for this manuscript (f. 19v.), also painted another 65 miniatures on ff. 146-409v., that contain suffrages. He also painted historiated initials and drolleries. The Hours of the Cross and the Temporale were illuminated by a second artist, named the Passion Master of Mary of Guelders after his work on the passion scenes in this manuscript. As I have suggested elsewhere, these illuminators may well have been working in Nijmegen, and since they most likely would already have started the decoration of those pages that had already been written, the decoration of the manuscript must have been well on the way by the time Helmich de Leeuw wrote his colophon on that winter-day in 1415.8 Meanwhile, as becomes clear from the municipal records of Nijmegen, in December 1413, Jean de Limbourg visited Nijmegen. Just over a year later, in March 1415, he did so again, this time together with his brother Paul.9 These visits to their native town of these acclaimed illuminators would have been the perfect opportunity for the Master of Mary of Guelders and the Passion Master to get acquainted with the works by the Limbourgs. The number of direct borrowings from Limbourg compositions, as can be glanced from appendix 1, seems to confirm this.10 However, it seems
7 Around a decade after the initial completion of the manuscript, a third artist, working in the style of the Masters of Otto of Moerdrecht, came in and added a number of full-page miniatures and vignettes in the calendar. However, his contribution need not concern us here. 8 The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 74, 77. 9 F. Gorissen, ‘Jan Maelwael und die Brüder Limburg: eine Nimweger Künsterfamilie um die Wende des 14. Jahrhunderts’, in: Bijdragen en Mededelingen van de Vereniging Gelre, 54 (1954), pp. 210, no. 118, 211, nos. 126-8, 130-2. 10 A number of these borrowings (ff. 19v., 39v., 50v. and 284v.) have already been discussed in The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 73-7, 250-3. Panofsky, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 101, already noted the relationship between the work of the Master of Mary of Guelders and the Limbourgs, and went even as far as to suggest a lost manuscript illuminated by the Limbourgs in the possession of the duchess. Panofsky’s Early Netherlandish Painting, however, appeared in 1953, a year before Gorissen’s publication of the Nijmegen origins of the Limbourgs. He therefore did not know that there was a more direct way through which the Master of Mary of Guelders could have gotten acquainted with the work of the Limbourgs; cf. Gorissen, op. cit. (n. 9).
154
rob dückers
that these illuminators also were aware of recent and even current trends in illumination in France. Did they also learn this through the Limbourgs, with them acting as intermediaries? Some examples may shed some light on this. For the hours of the Holy Cross, the Passion Master painted eight scenes from the passion of Christ. Several of these are related to compositions by the Limbourgs notably from the Belles Heures (cf. appendix 1a). Two of those, the Road to Calvary (f. 27v.) and the Descent from the Cross (f. 36r.) also reveal interesting details. The Road to Calvary (illus. 1) seems rather similar, only mirrored, to the composition devised by the Limbourg brothers in the Belles Heures (f. 138v., illus. 2). Indeed, the central group of Christ, Mary and John and the two principal tormentors can all be traced in the Belles Heures’ miniature, with slight differences. Their poses, nevertheless, reveal the source. There is one interesting detail, however, that shows in the prayer-book of Mary of Guelders, but is missing from the Belles Heures. The tormentor at the front, leading the procession, is carrying in his hands three nails, the nails with which Christ will be fixed to the cross. This detail is completely lacking from the scene in the Belles Heures, but does occur in a depiction of the same scene by the Master of the Parament of Narbonne in the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS Nouv. acq. lat. 3093, f. 108).11 Similarly, the scene with Christ’s Descent from the Cross (illus. 3) again derives from the example by the Limbourgs, as can be seen from the main figures (Christ, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimatea and John, who is barely visible behind Mary) and the position of the cross (f. 149r., illus. 4). Interestingly, this Limbourg miniature does show a man holding the nails (as well as one of the women holding the crown of thorns), though this time after the crucifixion, suggesting that the brothers did know the iconography. However, again we find a remarkable detail in the prayer-book, absent from the Belles Heures. In the prayer-book, we see a figure seated on the ground, pulling out the nail from Christ’s feet with a pair of thongs. This detail can again be found in the Parament Master’s depiction of the scene in the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame on f. 114v.12 How did the Passion Master learn of these details, both to be found in the work of the Parament Master on the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame? It is interesting to note, that the Limbourg brothers themselves added two miniatures to this manuscript after its initial completion.13 They therefore
11 Boespflug & König, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 66. 12 Boespflug & König, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 70. 13 Boespflug & König, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 75-81.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
155
1. Passion Master of Mary of Guelders, The Road to Calvary, from the prayer book of Mary of Guelders, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42, f. 27v.
must have had ample opportunity to study the work of the artists that had illuminated this interesting manuscript, before it was split up in or before 1413 and partly given to Robinet d’Estampes.14 This also provides a terminus antequem for the Limbourg additions. It shows that when Jean and Paul came to Nijmegen in 1413 and 1415, they already knew the compositions in this manuscript. They may therefore have made sketches from it, which they could have shown the Passion Master and the Master of Mary of Guelders during their visit. Finally, a word needs to be said on one of the most inventive and original illuminators in the Northern Netherlands, an artist that James Marrow has named ‘The Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle’, after a book of hours in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (MS M. 866). As will become clear later on in this contribution, this illuminator is familiar with several compositions originating from the Belles Heures and the Très Riches Heures.15
14 Boespflug & König, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 254-5. 15 One example, The Flight into Egypt in the Leefdael Hours (Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26, f. 98r.), has already been discussed in The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit (n. 3), pp. 77, 288-91.
156
rob dückers
2. Limbourg Brothers, The Road to Calvary, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 138v.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
157
3. Passion Master of Mary of Guelders, Descent from the Cross, from the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders, Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42, f. 36r.
Interestingly, also some of his marginal decoration seems to be inspired by the Limbourgs. He seems to be the first artist in the Northern Netherlands to include carefully and realistically depicted flowers in his margins.16 An interesting question is how the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle got to know of these innovations by the Limbourgs. If my hypothesis is right that the Master of Mary of Guelders and the Passion Master saw and copied compositions by the Limbourgs whilst they were in Nijmegen, then the link may be found in the Leefdael Hours, which is preserved in the University Library of Utrecht (MS 5.J.26).17 This book of Hours, to be dated around 1415-20, is a
16 Like the pea-pods and flowers that can be seen in a book of hours by his hand (London, British Library, MS Add. 50005, f. 23r.), which seem to be direct precursors of those depicted by the Masters of Catherine of Cleves in two books of Hours (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M. 945, f. 11r. and Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS 782, f. 58r.). Cf. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 290-1, Plummer, op. cit. (n. 3), nr. 3 and Randall, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 373. 17 Van der Horst, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 7-8, figs. 86-119 and The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 77, 288-9.
158
rob dückers
4. Limbourg Brothers, Descent from the Cross, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 149r.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
159
co-production of the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle and the Passion Master of Mary of Guelders. It is then through his colleague, the Passion Master, that the Morgan Infancy Cycle master may have gained access to the Limbourg material (cf. appendix 2).
The Masters of Zweder of Culemborg The most important group of artist active between 1425 and 1440 were the masters of Zweder of Culemborg. Although artist working in that style were already active around 1415, the style did not achieve pre-eminence until 1425. It is around that time-period that illuminators from their circle produce the manuscript they are named after, a missal, destined for use by the exiled Utrecht bishop Zweder of Culemborg, which today is kept in Bressanone (Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore, MS C. 20).18 This missal contains a fullpage canon-miniature, and 17 historiated initials. Two of those initials, the one showing the Lapidation of St. Stephen on f. 42v. and Pentecost on f. 173v. deserve our attention here, since both are based on compositions by the Limbourg brothers.19 In the Lapidation of St. Stephen (illus. 5), the first thing that strikes us is the completely different position that this Stephen has when compared to his counterpart in the Belles Heures (f. 162r., illus. 6). Nevertheless, the central group of three men throwing stones, as well as Saul on the right, are remarkably similar in their poses, even down to such a detail as the stones that the men carry in the folds of their tunics. There can be no doubt that the origin for the historiated initial in the missal is to be found in the Belles Heures composition. When looking at the Pentecost scene (illus. 7), it takes more of an effort to recognise its origins. Only when we look at the architecture, do we start to see similarities. In the Zweder-composition, the interior is constructed in a strange way. Behind Mary and the Apostles, there seems to be one continuous wall, stretching parallel to the picture plane. However, the vault seems to consist out of a flat ceiling in combination with a barrel vault, supported by the columns. This incongruence only can be explained when looking at the Belles Heures equivalent (f. 155, illus. 8). Clearly, the Zweder master has misunderstood the sketch or the composition in front of him, and has tried to resolve the problem. Yet, the position of the columns and the arches they are supporting clearly betray their origins, as do the two strangely positioned low walls,
18 Haller, op. cit. (n. 3). 19 There is a third example, on f. 169r., showing the Resurrection, which also is derived from a Limbourg composition, but will not be discussed here. Cf. Haller, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 78-9.
160
rob dückers
5. Master of Zweder of Culemborg, Lapidation of St. Stephen, from the Missal of Zweder of Culemborg, Bressanone, Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore, MS C. 20, f. 42v.
behind which the apostles are seated. Interestingly, this composition becomes a favourite one in the Zweder workshop, and is used in other manuscripts (cf. appendix 1a). As can be seen in the appendix 1a-c, many compositions deriving from the Limbourg brothers can be found in manuscripts illuminated by the Zweder workshop.20 In the Hoya-Missal, for example, we find not only beautifully painted flowers around the canon-page, that remind us of the larkspurs around the Feeding of the Five Thousand in the Très riches Heures (f. 168v.), but also historiated initials that show details from Limbourg compositions, such as the initial depicting the Nativity (f. 132r.), where we see such details as the shepherds, watching the child from behind a trellis, and a deep landscape with a
20 A very instructive example, deriving from the Egmont Breviary, is discussed in The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 420-1.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
161
6. Limbourg Brothers, Lapidation of St Stephen, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 162r.
162
rob dückers
7. Master of Zweder of Culemborg, Pentecost, from the Missal of Zweder of Culemborg, Bressanone, Biblioteca del Seminario Maggiore, MS C. 20, f. 173v.
gold statue of a pagan god – details that can be found in the nativity in the Très riches Heures. Another example is the beheading of John the Baptist, which is illustrated in the initial on f. 144v. John’s decapitated body is coming out of a castle, just as the Limbourg Brothers depicted him in a miniature from the cycle showing scenes from the Life of John the Baptist in the Belles Heures (f. 212r.).21 That this cycle was known to the Zweder Masters is proven by the fact that another miniature from this cycle, showing John the Baptist in the desert, is used to isolate the figure of John the Baptist (Belles Heures, f. 211r.). As can be seen in appendix 1a, this figure with its typical position of the feet recurs several times in Zweder manuscripts, amongst which what is arguably
21 For illustrations of the examples mentioned here, cf. Haller, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 43 and Golden Age, op. cit. (n. 3), pls. IV 32a-b. The composition was also used in a miniature by the Alexander Master in a History Bible in the Hague, Royal Library, MS 78 D 38 II, f. 162r.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
163
8. Limbourg Brothers, Pentecost, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 155r.
the most beautiful manuscript to come from a Zweder workshop, the Egmont Breviary in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (MS M. 87). The figure later also occurs in works by the Master of Catherine of Cleves. That it indeed is this miniature that the figure is derived from is proven by the fact that one of the auxiliary figures in the Belles Heures composition, a man counting on his fingers on the right of the picture, reappears in a miniature the Lochorst Bible in Cambridge (Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 289, vol. 2, f. 3v.), which is also illuminated by the Zweder Masters.22
The Masters of Catherine of Cleves Arguably the most remarkable illuminator, not only in his direct surroundings like his workshop but in the history of Dutch manuscript painting altogether, the Master of Catherine of Cleves had a large artistic vocabulary, borrowing not only from his Dutch colleagues, but also from Southern-Netherlandish
22 Reproduced in Masters and Miniatures, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 332, fig. 1.
164
rob dückers
painters, notably Robert Campin, and Parisian illumination.23 Not surprisingly, we also find quotations from Limbourg compositions in his work, though perhaps not as many as we would expect. One of the most clear examples is a drawing he added to a History Bible in London (London, British Library, MS Add. 38122, f. 61v.), which he modelled after the miniature of Heraclius at the Gates of Jerusalem in the Belles Heures (f. 156r.). Another example is the figure of John the Baptist, discussed above in the paragraph on the Zweder Masters, that occurs twice in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves and seems to have been passed on by the Zweder Masters, with whom the Cleves Master was in direct contact, to such an extant that it even has been suggested that the Cleves Master was trained in a Zweder workshop.24 However, it is certain that the Cleves Master and Zweder Masters collaborated on the Greiffenklau-missal now in Baltimore (Walters Art Museum, MS 174). It is likely via this route that the Cleves Master got to know the Limbourg compositions that were so extensively used in the Zweder workshops (cf. appendix 2). Some examples, to be discussed below, may illustrate this further.
Individual Motifs Sometimes, the relationship between miniatures painted in the Northern Netherlands and those painted by the Limbourg brothers is not purely compositional or iconographical. Individual motifs may recur, sometimes even in a different context, that nevertheless link the work of the Dutch illuminators to that of the Limbourgs.25 Such a motif has already been noted by James Marrow in his seminal article devoted to the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle: it is the depiction of Christ with his hands tied and hidden beneath his sleeves, when he appears for the Roman judges. We encounter the motif in the works by the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle and the Cleves Master, but is already present in both the Belles Heures and the Très Riches Heures.26 Another
23 From the extant works, it seems clear that more than one hand has participated in their execution. That is why I use the term ‘Masters of Catherine of Cleves’ in the heading in stead of a singular. Nevertheless, it seems that this workshop – or even style – was dominated by one major artistic personality. It is this artist that I credit with using Limbourg compositions, and therefore the paragraph suggests a singular master, despite the heading. 24 Plummer, op. cit. (n. 3), nrs. 69, 103. 25 This even extends to border-decorations, as already discussed in The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 79-80, 82-3. These examples are not included in the appendix, which only mentions compositions or elements thereof. 26 Marrow, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 98, n. 82; he only mentions the Belles Heures, but the motif also
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
165
example is a motif that is encountered in the scene depicting Christ’s Agony in the Garden, after the Last Supper. In his study of the Cleves Hours, Friedrich Gorissen noted that there this scene not only contains the chalice and host – in reference to both Christ’s imminent suffering and the Eucharist –, but also shows God the Father appearing, to present Christ with the Cross.27 Gorissen traced this motif back to Konrad van Soest as the earliest example (the altarpiece at Bad Wildungen, completed in 1403), but was not able to explain how the motif entered the workshop of the Cleves Master. However, before the Cleves Master and probably before Van Soest, the motif had already been employed by the Limbourgs in the Bible Moralisée (f. 21r.) and later again in the Belles Heures (f. 123r.).28 Both of these Limbourg compositions also contain small wicker fences, to suggest that the garden was separated from the land around it. This motif recurs not only in the Cleves miniature, but also in the work of the Passion Master in the Leefdael Hours (f. 193r.) and in several miniatures by the Zweder Masters.29 All of this suggests that the Limbourg composition has inspired the Cleves Master, be it directly or indirectly. It is also interesting to note that the figure of God the Father, appearing to comfort Christ, is already present in the depiction of this scene in the eponymous work of the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle.30 However, here God appears without the Cross, holding what seems to be a scroll or a rolled-up cloth in his hands. In this particular instance it therefore is difficult to reconstruct the ‘stemma’ showing how the Limbourg composition passed through several workshops to eventually be used by the Cleves Master. Another example may clarify such relationships better.
occurs in the Très Riches Heures, as Bodo Brinkmann observed, cf. Masters and Miniatures, op. cit (n. 3), p. 122, n. 30. 27 Gorissen, op. cit. (n.3), pp. 307-8. 28 This is provided that my hypothesis is right that the Bible Moralisée in the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, MS fr. 166, should not be identified as the très belle et très notable Bible, partially illuminated by the Limbourgs between 1402 and 1404, mentioned in the sources. If this indeed is the case, then this surviving manuscript, undoubtedly by the Limbourgs, is likely to predate the bible mentioned in the sources, and in that case also predates the altarpiece by Van Soest, cf. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 87-8, 90-2. 29 E.g. Rotterdam, Gemeentebibliotheek, MS 96 E 12, f. 23v. and The Hague, Royal Library, MS 135 E 36, f. 82v., which show exactly the same composition. For the Rotterdam Hours, cf. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 296-7. 30 New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M. 866, f. 63v., cf. Golden Age, op. cit. (n. 3), plate II 12a.
166
rob dückers
St Martin of Tours As an example of how a Limbourg brothers’ composition was transmitted, the miniature depicting St Martin of Tours in the brothers’ Belles Heures (f. 169r.) may be instructive (illus. 9). As Victor Schmidt already demonstrated in his essay ‘The Limbourgs and Italian Art’, this composition strongly resembles a panel attributed to Ambrogio Lorenzetti in New Haven.31 However, as Schmidt points out – though for different reasons – not so much the similarities between the panel and the miniature are interesting, but rather the differences. One of the most intriguing is the fact that even though the Lorenzetti composition only shows one beggar, the Limbourg brothers, probably for reasons of visual interest, added a second. This second beggar is not mentioned in Sulpitius Severus’ Vita Martini, neither is he recorded by Gregory of Tours, nor can he be found in the Legenda Aurea nor in the liturgy for the feast of St. Martin (November 11) or his translation (July 4). There seems to be no obvious textual source for this motif.32 Nevertheless, in at least three Dutch manuscripts we encounter this second beggar. Coincidentally, all three manuscripts are kept in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York. The first example is the eponymous manuscript of the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle (M. 866, f. 150v.), the second one the Egmont Breviary (M. 87, f. 410v.) and the third example the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (M. 917, p. 279). All three miniatures show a second beggar (illus. 10-12). However, all three miniatures also show Martin turning backwards in the action of splitting his cloak, which is exactly the opposite of how the saint is shown in the Belles Heures. In both the Belles Heures and the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Martin is exiting the city gate of Amiens. In the Egmont Breviary, he seems to be entering the city. The Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle shows no city gate at all; neither is there any reference whatsoever in his miniature to the vision Martin had after his encounter with the beggar, when Christ appeared to him clothed in the part of the garment he gave to the beggar. This reduction in narrative elements is
31 New Haven, Yale University Art Gallery, inv. 1871.11. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n.3), p. 184. 32 All of these sources mention just one beggar. For the Legenda Aurea, cf. Jacobi a Voragine Legenda Aurea: vulgo Historia lombardica dicta, ed. Th. Graesse (3rd ed.; Breslau 1890), cap. 166; a reliable edition of the Vita sancti Martini episcopi et confessoris by Sulpicius Severus is offered by Migne in his Patrologia Latina, but is also available on the web, cf. www.thelatinlibrary.com/ sulpiciusseverusmartin.html. For a reconstruction of the office of St. Martin for November 11, as chanted in the Cathedral of Utrecht, cf. M. Breij, Sint Maarten, Schutspatroon van Utrecht (Utrecht 1988), pp. 43-84.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 167
9. Limbourg Brothers, St Martin, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 169r.
168
rob dückers
10. Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle, St. Martin, New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M 866, f. 150v.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 169
11. Masters of Zweder of Culemborg, St Martin, from the Breviary of Arnold of Egmont, New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M 87, f. 410v.
170
rob dückers
12. Master of Catherine of Cleves, St Martin, from the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M 917, p. 279.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
171
in line with the simplification of compositional schemes, which we shall also encounter in another instance where this master copies a Limbourg composition, to be discussed below. The reference to the vision is also absent from the Egmont Breviary, but reappears in the Cleves Hours. The horse, on which the saint is seated, is the same in all three miniatures, but differs considerably from the one shown in the Belles Heures. However, it is indeed a ‘Limbourg-horse’ that we find here, for it re-occurs on f. 156 of the Belles Heures, in the miniature depicting Heraclius’ return with the Holy Cross. This particular horse, as a matter of fact, the Limbourgs copied from a medal in the collection of Jean de Berry.33 Finally, the hoof-prints visible on the road in the Cleves Hours seem compositionally akin to the stones from which the road in the Belles Heures is made. Even though it is clear that the Dutch illuminators whose work is discussed here used a composition after the Limbourgs, the relative coherence between the three copies and their differences with the Belles Heures miniature seem to indicate that they did not copy the Belles Heures directly. They couldn’t have, since the manuscript was already in possession of Jolande of Aragon by the time the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle rendered his St. Martin. Adhering as they were to their Italian (or Italianate) model, it may be that the Limbourgs eventually were dissatisfied with their rendering of Martin’s encounter with the beggar in the Belles Heures. For the beggar who receives the cloak from the saint is partially covered by the horse; his face is not visible at all. They may have conceived a new compositional scheme, in which the saint turns back to split his cloak and clothe the beggar. It would not have been that much of a stretch, since on the medal the Limbourgs used as a source of inspiration for the Heraclius miniature, there is already a depiction of a servant riding a second horse behind the first one, turning back towards Heraclius. This posture may have inspired the Limbourgs to rethink the position of the saint and make him turn backwards in their new rendering of the theme.34 The
33 The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 350-1; f. 156 of the Belles Heures is reproduced on p. 107. 34 Interestingly, two manuscripts that include Limbourg borrowings, namely the Heures de Saint Maur (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS n.a.l. 3107) and the Châteauroux Breviary (Châteauroux, Médiathèque municipale Équinoxe, MS 2) show depictions of Martin and the beggar in this new position on a similar horse; the miniatures are very similar as far as the poses of Martin, the horse and the beggar are concerned. However, they fail to show a second beggar or a piece of Martin’s cloak handed down from heaven. They may therefore represent current models in depicting St. Martin in the Île de France, rather than giving direct evidence for a change in a Limbourg composition after the Belles Heures. For these two manuscripts, cf. The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 404-7; Paris 1400. Les arts sous Charles VI, ed. E. Taburet-Delahaye & F. Avril (Paris 2004). pp. 284-6, nr. 176 (Heures de Saint Maur) and I. Villela-Petit, Le Bréviaire de Châteauroux (Paris 2003), p. 112.
172
rob dückers
new and redefined composition then would have been the image they would have shown to their colleagues upon their return to Nijmegen in 1413 or 1415, where this and other models may have been partially or fully copied, most likely by the Passion Master and the Master of Mary of Guelders, perhaps already by the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle as well. These studies (or copies thereof ) would then have been reused at a later date by the Zweder Masters and the Master of Catherine of Cleves. Notwithstanding their overall similarities, the distinct differences between the miniatures of these three different Dutch illuminators seem to suggest that each illuminator had access to – and re-shuffled – the copied Limbourg composition, as opposed to a younger Northern illuminator copying the composition from an older colleague. However, that a corpus of Limbourg compositions was handed over or passed down from one workshop to another seems to be hardly unlikely, given the scale on which direct or indirect borrowings from the oeuvre of the Limbourgs occur in Dutch illuminated manuscripts. A relationship between the rendering of St. Martin by the Master of Catherine of Cleves and that of the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle was already noted by James Marrow in his 1968 article on the Infancy Cycle Master. However, as he stated, ‘the everpresent possibility of a lost common prototype prevents us from affirming direct influence’.35 This common prototype, as it turns out, is likely to be a Limbourg drawing, indeed lost, but partially preserved in an earlier version in the St. Martin from the Belles Heures.
The Annunciation One of the most important iconographical themes in a miniaturist’s artistic vocabulary is the scene of the angel Gabriel who announces to Mary that she will become the Mother of Christ. Taken from the Gospel of St. Luke (1: 26-38), it is a scene that is encountered in many variations in every book that shows an illuminated cycle of the life of Mary or the infancy of Christ or individual scenes thereof, be it a book of hours, a Speculum Humanae Salvationis, a History-Bible or an illuminated missal, to name but a few possible genres. The Limbourg brothers created two different but in both cases impressive depictions of this scene in both the Belles Heures (f. 30r., illus. 13) and the Très Riches Heures (f. 26r., illus. 14); given the importance of the miniatures, as the opening of the Hours of the Blessed Virgin, it is only fitting that both are
35 Marrow, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 99-100.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
173
13. Limbourg Brothers, Annunciation, from the Belles Heures, New York, MMA, Cloisters Collection, Acc. 54.1.1, f. 30r.
174
rob dückers
14. Limbourg Brothers, Annunciation, from the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, Chantilly, Musée Condé, f. 26r.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
175
monumental compositions. These appealing compositions were already circulating in France, as is shown by contemporary copies.36 Around 1415, these compositions also seem to have reached the illuminators in the Northern Netherlands. The first Dutch illuminator to use these compositions seems to be the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle, in the Leefdael Hours (f. 13v., illus. 15). He does not copy the whole composition, so that at first sight there seems to be only a superficial resemblance. However, when compared in more detail, both the figures of Gabriel and Mary turn out to derive from the originals by the Limbourgs. The posture of Mary in the Leefdael Hours is very close to that in the Très riches Heures, even down to the part of her cloak that sags onto the ground and folds in a similar fashion in both miniatures. The drapery of the tunic of Gabriel also is very similar in both. Finally, the figure of God the Father sending down the Holy Spirit, a motif that does not occur that often in Northern Netherlandish manuscripts of the period, can be found in the left-hand corner in both annunciations. It seems that the master has used the essential elements in the Limbourg composition, i.e. Mary, her prie-Dieu or lectern, Gabriel and God the Father with the Holy Spirit, and left everything else out, so as not to divert attention away from the main storyline, a characteristic that we have already encountered in his depiction of St. Martin. Coincidentally, a similar yet less radically restricted use of Limbourg and Boucicaut models can be observed in a number of printed Annunciationscenes, possibly stemming from Southern Germany, c. 1460.37 An interesting feature in the Infancy Cycle Master’s miniature is the gesture of Gabriel, who is pointing towards heaven. This gesture is absent from the Limbourg composition in the Très riches Heures, but does occur, though less articulated, in the Belles Heures.38 It is likely that the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle distilled his composition out of two examples after the Limbourgs at his disposal, one
36 The composition from the Belles Heures was already copied around 1410 into a book of hours (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte Geneviève, MS 2713, f. 13r.) and at approximately the same time in the Heures de Saint Maur (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS n.a.l. 3107, f. 45r.) and a partial copy from the annunciation in the Très Riches Heures can be found in a book of hours, dating around 1425, in the Morgan Library and Museum in New York (M. 453, f. 30v.). For the most recent discussion of these examples, cf. the comments made by Gregory Clark in: The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 233, 406-7. 37 Origins of European Printmaking. Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Their Public, ed. P. Parshall & R. Schoch (Washington 2005), pp. 112-15. 38 The Limbourgs may have found the gesture readily in annunciations in manuscripts already owned by the duke, such as the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame, f. 7v., cf. Boespflug & König, op. cit. (n. 3), p. 12.
176
rob dückers
15. Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle, Annunciation, from the Leefdael Hours, Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26, f. 13v.
more similar to the Belles Heures, one close to the Très riches Heures, since other Dutch illuminators seem to use elements from both as well. Alternatively, a composition that already combined elements from both may have been circulating by this time. This, however, seems less likely when we look at the work of other illuminators, who seem to include other copied details. In the second part of a history Bible, dating from c. 1430 and now preserved at the Royal Library in The Hague (MS 78 D 38 II), the so-called Alexander Master shows us on f. 141v. the annunciation (illus. 16).39 Here the illuminator reveals his sources more clearly. The pose of Mary and the position of both the angel and the dove, representing the Holy Spirit, derive from the Très riches Heures-annunciation, even though the composition is mirrored, the angel makes a gesture – like we already noted in the rendering of this scene by the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle – and Mary’s lectern has turned into an altar here. However, this time, the Alexander Master also shows us an interior, that is clearly modelled after the room the Limbourgs created in the Belles Heures. It shows the same compartmented interior, with a central column dividing the room into two spaces, and two columns on the side – which are rendered almost identical to the ones in the Belles Heures – , and also the vault is depicted in the same way. In the back wall of the room, the Alexander Master makes a slight variation on the arches visible in the Belles Heures, which are turned into windows here. The notable absentee in the Alexander Master’s
39 Golden Age, op. cit. (n. 3), nr. 38, pp. 131-5.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 177
16. Alexander Master, Annunciation, from a History Bible, The Hague, Royal Library, MS 78 D 38 II, f. 141v.
miniature is God the Father; however, in both the Belles Heures’ and Très riches Heures’ annunciations, he is not represented in the central part of the miniature, but in an extension (Belles Heures) or even in the margin (Très riches Heures). This may explain his absence here. It is essentially the Alexander Master’s composition that we also encounter in a book of hours, illuminated by the Zweder Masters, around the same time, if not slightly earlier (France, private collection, illus. 17).40 Yet a different step is taken very soon. In the annunciation in the Egmont Breviary (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M. 87, f. 345v.) painted around 1435, the interior seems to be a further simplification of the Belles Heures’ room (illus. 18). The columns on the side are still there; the central column, however, has disappeared, even though the arches in the front wall still reflect the separation of the space in two distinct bays. The poses of Mary and Gabriel are very close to the Leefdael Hours, with only the positions of the arms changed on both figures. God the Father re-appears here, and coming down on rays of light, not
40 Golden Age, op. cit. (n. 3), nr. 31, pp. 104-105.
178
rob dückers
17. Zweder Master, Annunciation, from a Book of Hours. France, Private Collection.
only the Holy Spirit is overshadowing Mary, but we also see the infant Jesus being sent down, carrying the Cross on his back, a motif that is familiar to us from Robert Campin’s Merode Altarpiece (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Cloisters). Behind Mary is a curtain, and over her head, high up near the vault, a canopy. It is this curtain and canopy that we eventually find integrated as a bed in many other depictions of this scene by the Zweder Masters, such as in the annunciation in a book of hours in the Hague (Royal Library, MS 79 K 2, p. 24). However, the poses of Mary, the Angel and God the Father (without the Christ-child) remain similar.
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 179
18. Masters of Zweder of Culemborg, Annunciation, from the Breviary of Arnold of Egmont, New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M 87, f. 345v.
180
rob dückers
Conclusion The evidence assembled and presented in appendix 1a-c seems to support the hypothesis that a model book containing copies of Limbourg compositions circulated in the Northern Netherlands from about 1415 onwards. The possibility of such a model book existing, is given weight by the so-called Model Book of Jacques Daliwe (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek, Liber Picturatus a 74), a collection of drawings on small boxwood panels dating from around 1415, where on two of the panels (IIa and XIIa) compositions of the Limbourg brothers survive (i.e. the Flagellation of Christ and the Visitation, both taken from the Belles Heures, f. 132r. and 42v. respectively).41 Whether these models were introduced to Dutch illuminators active between 1410 and 1415 by the Limbourgs themselves during the visits to their native town of Nijmegen is a question that cannot be answered affirmatively as yet, since too many variables in this equation are unsure. Were the Master of Mary of Guelders and the Passion Master indeed living in or near Nijmegen during their work on the prayer-book of Mary of Guelders, which would have enabled them to meet the Limbourgs? And – regardless the question where these artists worked – did these illuminators stay in their native region during that period, or did they, like many others, follow the example set by such artists as the Limbourgs by going to the Île de France, where they may have learned of the Limbourgs’ compositions, as well as those by other leading illuminators, perhaps even without ever meeting them?42 The evidence so far seems to suggest otherwise, for as we have seen,
41 U. Jenni & U. Winter, Das Skizzenbuch des Jacques Daliwe (Weinheim 1987), pp. 30-2; R. Scheller, Exemplum: Model-Book Drawings and the Practice of Artistic Transmission in the Middle Ages (ca. 900-ca. 1450) (Amsterdam 1995), pp. 233-40. 42 This possibility was pointed out to me by Dr. Patricia Stirnemann, and given the direct relation between Mary of Guelders and Jean, duc de Berry – and therefore the possibility of access to the duke’s manuscripts for Mary’s artists through an introduction – it should not be dismissed instantly. However, the chronology of their work points in a different direction, since accepting this hypothesis means the master of Mary of Guelders and the Passion Master would have needed to go to France and return from there before their work on the prayer-book of Mary of Guelders was finished, which cannot have been much later than 1416; the borrowings from the Très Riches Heures suggest a terminus postquem of 1412 if not later, since that project was only started around 1411 and the Limbourgs were also executing other, smaller commissions during this time, such as the miniatures they added to manuscripts already owned by Jean de Berry and possibly others (such as the Vatican Valerius Maximus and the Paris Très Belles Heures and Petites Heures). Considering that the Dutch illuminators needed time to incorporate the borrowings in their own miniatures, this theoretically leaves a gap of about three and a half years at most, but most likely much shorter than that, since the writing of the manuscript was only finished in
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
181
even in those instances where we can identify the use of compositions developed by contemporaries of the Limbourgs working in France, these are often taken from manuscripts that the Limbourgs had access to, or even added miniatures to.43 For now, the admittedly rather romantic hypothesis of a ‘close encounter’ in Nijmegen between the leading Dutch illuminators of the time and their famed countrymen working at the court of Jean de Berry seems to fit the existing evidence perfectly.
February 1415 and will not have taken three years to complete. It is a time period, moreover, in which the illuminators were supposed to work full-time on their commission by the duchess, before starting their work on other manuscripts, such as the Leefdael Hours or the Cockerell Hours. A journey to France, even to be inspired by contemporary French illumination, seems a luxury they could not afford at the time. 43 A number of compositions in Dutch manuscripts are derived from manuscripts in the collection of Jean, duc de Berry, such as the Très Belles Heures de Notre Dame (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS N. a. lat. 3093), the Petites Heures (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS lat. 18014) or the Très Belles Heures (Brussels, Royal Library, MS 11060-61). The Limbourgs added miniatures to the first two, and probably studied and used all three as a source for their own compositions. Therefore, they may also have made sketches of these compositions, which were shown to their Dutch colleagues, together with their own; see also the comments made in the paragraph on the Master of Mary of Guelders and the Passion Master. For compositions derived from these manuscripts, cf. The Golden Age, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 12, 58, 74, 102, 104-5, 106, 109-10, 111; The Limbourg Brothers, op. cit. (n. 3), pp. 296-7. The latter case indeed seems to support the hypothesis of the Limbourgs also transmitting some compositions by their contemporaries, since it indeed shows a combination of motifs, taken from two different sources (a feature that we already encountered when we discussed the annunciation in a privately owned book of hours by the Zweder Masters, cf. the paragraph on the annunciation), in this case the Limbourgs’ Belles Heures and the Brussels Hours.
182
Appendices
rob dückers
The first appendix lists in three tables those compositions or compositional elements by the Limbourg brothers that have been used in manuscripts from the Northern Netherlands between 1415 and 1450, together with the manuscripts that they are found in. For the sake of brevity and clarity, sigla are used to indicate these manuscripts. The list below presents the key to those sigla. Furthermore, the table mentions the folio-number of the manuscript where the derived composition is to be found (when unknown, a question-mark appears), and the back-ground colour of the cell indicates whether a composition by the Limbourgs or a substantial part thereof has been generally adapted, in which case the background is light, or whether only individual elements or iconographic motifs have been copied or used, in which case the background is dark. It is possible that elements from different Limbourg compositions are combined in one miniature by a follower; in that case, a specific folio or page of a manuscript will appear more than once in the table. The second appendix interprets the data provided by the first. The purpose of the chart is to clarify possible relationships between individual manuscripts and the artists or workshops that illuminated them, thereby showing how compositions could have been transmitted from one workshop to the other. Sigla The sigla are created from the title of the manuscript when it is generally known under that title; when generic, as in the case of books of hours, the first letter of the location of the collection is added, or, if more relevant manuscripts of one book-type with only a generic name are kept in the same collection, a lower case number is added. In some cases, manuscripts were decorated by artist working in different styles and/or different periods. When both (groups of ) artists used compositions by the Limbourg brothers, they are distinguished by adding a lower case letter referring to that/those artist(s) to the siglum. PMGp, for example, refers to the miniatures that the Passion Master contributed to the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders; PMGm denotes the miniatures painted by the Master of Mary of Guelders. Contributing artists that have not used Limbourg compositions have been disregarded; as an example, there is no mention of the added illumination by the Masters of Otto of Moerdrecht in the Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders, since their illuminations do not reflect the work of the Limbourgs. References have been made to reproductions of the compositions in question; a full bibliography for these references is given in note 3.
Manuscripts by the Master of Mary of Guelders (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42) Repr. in Dückers 2005, p. 75 fig. 12, p. 250; Gorissen 1973, pp. 867, 900, 960; Obbema 1989, fig. 19.
MGm
Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders
Manuscripts by the Passion Master of Mary of Guelders (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. Qu. 42) (Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26)
MGp
Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders
LHp
Leefdael Hours
Repr. in Delaissé 1968, figs. 11-12; Dückers 2005, p. 76 fig. 14, p. 251; Obbema 1989, p. 18 fig. 20. Repr. in Van der Horst 1989, Plates c and nrs. 110119.
Manuscripts by the Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle (Utrecht, University Library, MS 5.J.26)
LHm
Leefdael Hours
BHN
Book of Hours
BHLI
Book of Hours
Repr. in Dückers 2005, p. 288; Van der Horst 1989, Plate B and nrs. 86-109. (New York, The Morgan Library and Museum, M.866) Repr. in Marrow 1968 passim; Golden Age, pl. II 12a-b and figs. 15-16 (Liège, Bibliothèque de l’Université, MS Wittert 35) Repr. in Marrow 1968 passim.
Manuscripts by the Masters of Zweder of Culemborg (Brixen, Bibliothek des Priesterseminars, MS C. ) (Münster, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS ) (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS 174) (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, M. 87)
MZC HM
Missal of Zweder of Culemborg Hoya-Missal
GM EB
Greifenklau-Missal Egmont Breviary
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
EBU
(Utrecht, University Library, MS 12.C.17) (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 289)
183
LBC
Egmont Breviary, detached miniature Lochorst Bible
Repr. in Schreiber 1992, pp. 57, 79, 83 Repr. in Haller 1996, pp. 27, 33, 43; Golden Age, pl. IV 32a-b. Repr. in Byvanck 1943, afb. 19. Repr. in Delaissé 1968, figs. 25-27; De Hamel 1994, pp. 216-217; Golden Age 1989, pl. IV 36c; Masters and Miniatures, p. 73 fig. 19; Obbema 1989, fig. 21; Panofsky 1971, fig. 124. Repr. in Van der Horst 1989, Plate G and nrs. 162163. Repr. in Masters and Miniatures, p. 332 fig. 1.
184
BHR BHP BHH1 BHH2
Book of Hours Book of Hours Book of Hours Book of Hours
(Rotterdam, Gemeentebibliotheek, MS 96 G 12) (Private Collection, France) (The Hague, Royal Library, MS 131 M 31) (The Hague, Royal Library, MS 79 K 2)
Repr. in Golden Age 1989, pl. II 20. Repr. in Golden Age 1989, Pl. IV 31, p. 105, fig. 45 Repr. of all miniatures cf. www.kb.nl/manuscripts Repr. of all miniatures cf. www.kb.nl/manuscripts
Manuscripts by the Masters of Catherine of Cleves Repr. of all miniatures in Plummer 1975. Repr. in Gorissen 1973, fig. 419. Repr. in Obbema 1989, fig. 24. Repr. in Randall 1974.
CC
Hours of Catherine of Cleves (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, M.917 and M.944) (London, British Library, MS Add. 38122) (Leiden, University Library, BPL 224) (Baltimore, Walters Art Museum, MS 782)
HBL HAZ AHB
History Bible Hours of Aetzaert of Zaers Van Alfen Hours
Manuscripts by multiple or unidentified artists or workshops Repr. in De Vreese 1922, Pls. I, II, V. Repr. in Dückers 2005, p. 78, fig. 16.
BHH
Book of Hours
rob dückers
SHS (The Hague, Royal Library, MS 78 D 38 II) (The Hague, Royal Library, MS 135 E 36) (Münich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Cgm. 1102) (Berlin, Staatsbibliothek zu Berlin, MS Germ. fol. 1612)
Speculum Humanae Salvationis
(Olim M. Hertzberger, Amsterdam; present location unknown) (New York, New York Public Library, Spencer MS 15)
HBH
History Bible
BHH3 HBM NBB
Book of Hours History Bible Nuttelijc Boek
Repr. of all miniatures cf. www.kb.nl/manuscripts; Masters and Miniatures p. 146 fig 1. Repr. of all miniatures cf. www.kb.nl/manuscripts Repr. in Golden Age, p. 139, fig. 68. Repr. in Golden Age, p. 136 fig. 65.
Appendix 1a: Compositions from the Belles Heures, used in manuscripts from the Northern Netherlands
Folio no. and composition CC HBL HAZ AHB BHH SHS HBH 162r 323v 107v 92r 345v 193v 132r p 54 ? 44r 141v
MGm MGp LHp LHm BHN MZC HM GM EB LBC BHR BHP BHH1 BHH2 BHH3
f. 19v Catherine beheaded
Lacking : John on Patmos
f. 26v Ara Coeli
50v
f. 30r Annunciation
f. 42v Visitation
34r
f. 48v Birth of Christ
53r
f. 63r Flight into Egypt 63v
98r
f. 123r Agony in the Garden 23v 13v
193r
p 120
f. 123v Arrest of Christ
20r
212r
82v
44v
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands
f. 132r Flagellation of Christ
224r
p 152
87v
f 60v
128v
45r
185
186
Appendix 1a: (cont.)
Folio no. and composition CC ?
MGm MGp LHp LHm BHN MZC HM GM EB LBC BHR BHP BHH1 BHH2 BHH3
HBL HAZ AHB BHH SHS HBH
f.135v Christ before Pilate 85v p 38
f. 138r Pilate washing hands 199v 63v p 158 89v
23v
45r
f. 138v Road to Calvary 77v 93v
27v
rob dückers
f. 149r Descent from the Cross 169r 173v ? 98v EBU p 188
36r
f. 152v Guards sleeping
f. 155r Pentecost
f. 156r Heraclius at the Gate of Jerusalem
61v
9v
f. 156v Heraclius entering the Gate of Jerusalem
237v
f. 157v Madonna 284v enthroned
f. 158v John the Baptist with the Lamb p 208 f 124r 42v 370v 150v 410v p 279
201r
f. 162r Stoning of Stephen
f. 162v Lawrence
f. 169 Martin and the beggar
f. 178r Agnes covered in hair 81r 11, 3v 131v p 216 p 222
181r
f. 211r John the Baptist in the desert 144v
176v
p 208 f 124r
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 187
162r
f. 212r Death of John the Bapt.
188
Appendix 1b: Compositions from the Très riches Heures, used in manuscripts from the Northern Netherlands MGp LHm BHN BHLI HM EB BHH2 AHB BHH HBH
Folio-nr. and composition
MGm
f. 4v 50v 13v 110v 50v 132r 192v p 54 124r 78v 221v 190r 345v p 24 92r
April
19v 9v+2v ?
f. 22r Ara Coeli
f. 25v Fall of Man/Expulsion
f. 26r Annunciation
f. 34v Last Judgement
f. 43v Zachariah and Angel
f. 44v Birth of Christ
rob dückers
f. 173v Entry into Jerusalem
Appendix 1c: Compositions from the Bible Moralisée, used in manuscripts from the Northern Netherlands MGp CC HBM 7v 39v 193r p 120 145r N BB
Folio-nr. and composition
f. 3r
Marriage of Adam and Eve
f. 13v
Soldiers guarding the Grave
f. 21r
Agony in the Garden
Appendix 2: Possibilities for transmission of compositions by the Limbourg brothers from workshop to workshop
Likely paths of transmission Possible paths of transmission
(based on collaboration of two different artists on a manuscript and/or the occurrence of similar motifs or deviations in compositions)
1400
The Limbourg Brothers
Bible Moralisée
Belles Heures
Corpus of Limbourg Compositions
Passion Master of Mary of Guelders Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle Masters of Zweder of Culemborg
1410
Master of Mary of Guelders
Très riches Heures Prayer Book of Mary of Guelders Leefdael Hours Liège Hours
(BHH1)
1420 New York Hours
Utrecht Bible Masters of the First Generation
The Hague Hours Missal
Zweder of Culemborg
Hoya Missal Book of Hours
Private Collection
1430 The Hague Hours
(BHH3)
History Bibles
(HBH/HBM)
The Hague Hours
(BHH2)
Masters of Catherine of Cleves
1440
Greiffenklau missal Egmont Breviary Cleves Hours Zaers Hours Van Alfen Hours London History Bible
the limbourgs and illumination in the northern netherlands 189
1450
The Master of Guillebert de Mets, Philip the Good, and the Breviary of John the Fearless
Gregory T. Clark
University of the South, Sewanee, Tennessee, USA
In , the British Museum acquired the summer half of a generously illustrated early fifteenth-century French breviary as part of the Harley collection (illus. -). Although written for the use of Rome, the better part of the manuscript, now Harley in the British Library, was probably made in Paris in the second decade of the century. The coats of arms beneath the Ascension (f. v.) demonstrate that Harley was once owned by John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy from to ; his wife, Margaret of Bavaria; or both. In , Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild bequeathed the winter half of the breviary to the British Museum; today it is Additional manuscript in the British Library (illus. ). In , both halves of the London Breviary were included in the sixth and last volume of the British Museum’s Schools of Illumination series. That volume’s anonymous author was apparently the first to recognize that the text of the Sanctorale breaks off in midline at f. v. in Additional and recommences on f. r. of Harley . Given this, it would appear that the
For Harley , see most recently The Limbourg brothers. Nijmegen masters at the French court -, ed. R. Dückers & P. Roelofs (Nijmegen ), p. , no. , with a summary bibliography. F. v. of Harley is illustrated in ibid. on p. . For Additional , see most recently ibid., p. , no. (with summary bibliography), and C. de Hamel, The Rothschilds and their collections of illuminated manuscripts (London ), pp. , , Pl. a. Schools of illumination. Reproductions from manuscripts in the British Museum. Part 6: French, mid-th to th centuries (London ), pp. -, Pl. . The break comes between two gatherings of eight: f. is the last folio in gathering (ff. -) of Additional and f. is the first folio in gathering (ff. -) of Harley .
192
gregory t. clark
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. v.: David in landscape pointing to his eyes (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
the breviary of john the fearless
193
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. v.: David in landscape pointing to his mouth (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
194
gregory t. clark
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. v.: Kneeling David praying to Lord in landscape as jester dances (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
the breviary of john the fearless
195
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. v.: Nude David standing in body of water (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
196
gregory t. clark
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. : Seated David playing bells (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
the breviary of john the fearless
197
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. v.: David leading five clerics in song (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
198
gregory t. clark
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Harley (Breviary of John the Fearless, summer portion), f. : Trinity enthroned (Psalm ). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: BL).
the breviary of john the fearless
199
. London, Brit. Lib., MS Add. (Breviary of John the Fearless, winter portion), f. v.: Nude David standing in body of water (Psalm ). Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless, probably Paris, before (photo: BL).
200
gregory t. clark
London breviary was originally meant to be bound as a single volume of some leaves. Once it was decided to divide the very dense book into two more manageable halves, the second half – now Harley – was provided with its own calendar, ferial psalter, and common of saints. Together with a selection of hymns, absolutions, benedictions, and invitations, these texts occupy the first twenty gatherings of the book, from ff. to . In a seminal essay on the London breviary published in , Friedrich Winkler attributed the seven surviving miniatures in the ferial psalter in Harley to the southern Netherlandish illuminator whom Winkler himself would name the Master of Guillebert de Mets just four years later. The starting point for ascriptions to the painter is the frontispiece in a textual miscellany in the Royal Library of Belgium (MS -; illus. ) That frontispiece, the only miniature in the manuscript, introduces the miscellany’s first text, Christine de Pisan’s Épistre d’Othéa; the last text is a famous description of Paris transcribed in or shortly after by Guillebert de Mets of Geraardsbergen (Grammont) in East Flanders. As Guillebert de Mets most likely died between and , the Brussels miscellany should probably be dated between about and . But while Guillebert de Mets lived in Geraardsbergen, the illuminator named after him probably illustrated the miscellany in nearby Ghent. In the nine and a half decades since Winkler’s essay, scholars writing about the London breviary have focused almost exclusively on the book’s lead
The collation of Harley to f. : (-), (-, leaf between and removed), - (-), (-), (-), (-), - (-), (-). Catchwords survive at the ends of gatherings -, , and . F. Winkler, ‘Ein neues Werk aus der Werkstatt Pauls von Limburg’, in: Repertorium für Kunstwissenschaft, (), pp. -; F. Winkler, ‘Studien zur Geschichte der niederländischen Miniaturmalerei des XV. und XVI. Jahrhunderts – II: Eine flandrische Lokalschule um -. Der Meister der Privilegien von Flandern und Gent (Cod. der k.k. Hofbibliothek), der Meister des Guillebert von Metz’, in: Jahrbuch der kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses, (), pp. -. The fullest description of the Brussels manuscript is found in C. Gaspar and F. Lyna, Les principaux manuscrits à peintures de la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique, vol. (Paris ; repr. and enl. Brussels ), pp. -, no. , Pl. . For Guillebert de Mets, see most recently S. Somers, ‘The Varied Occupations of a Burgundian Scribe: Corrections and Additions Relating to Guillebert de Mets (c./-after )’, in: ‘Als Ich Can’. Liber amicorum in memory of Professor Dr. Maurits Smeyers, ed. B. Cardon, J. Van der Stock, & D. Vanwijnsberghe (Louvain ), pp. -. The place of work of the Guillebert de Mets Master is most recently considered by M.P.J. Martens, ‘The Master of Guillebert de Mets: An Illuminator between Paris and Ghent?’, in: ‘Als Ich Can’, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -.
the breviary of john the fearless
201
. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, MS - (Textual Miscellany), f. : Justice seated between personifications of Mercy and Information. Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: RLB).
202
gregory t. clark
illuminator, the wonderful eccentric whom Millard Meiss named the Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless after the London volumes. Both volumes were shown in the Nijmegen exhibition in because of the close relationship between some of the miniatures by the Master of the Breviary of John the Fearless and the work of the Limbourg Brothers. I will concentrate instead on the seven pages illustrated by the Guillebert de Mets Master in the ferial psalter of Harley . One of my motivations is to introduce those seven pages to a wider audience: save a closely cropped reproduction of the miniature of the Trinity (illus. ), the illumination of the first twenty gatherings of Harley is, to the best of my knowledge, entirely unpublished. My main purpose here, however, is to set those gatherings into the larger context of the history of the breviary, and more specifically the book’s peregrinations immediately after the passing of its original owner or owners. The illustration of the first twenty gatherings of Harley originally comprised eight miniatures, all in the ferial psalter. Sadly, the illustration for psalm one (Beatus vir) was lost with the excision of the psalter’s first leaf. The corresponding miniature in Additional (f. ) is two columns wide. Painted by the Breviary Master, it depicts David and a scribe before the Lord. Given this, the first illustration in the ferial psalter of Harley was probably two columns wide as well. The remaining seven psalter miniatures in Harley , like the seven corresponding illustrations by the Breviary Master in Additional , are just one column wide. Although probably the work of different scribes, the Gothic scripts before f. in Harley and in the remainder of the London breviary are not distinctive enough to localize to one or another center or region (illus. -). What does distinguish the first twenty gatherings in Harley from the rest of the breviary are the filigraine and colored initials, the marginal flora, and of course the miniatures themselves. All of the one-line initials in the breviary are either blue or gold and are embellished with filigraine decoration in red or black, respectively. But while the marginal extenders of that filigraine decora The classic essay on the Breviary Master remains M. Meiss, French painting in the time of Jean de Berry. The Limbourgs and their contemporaries (New York ) pp. -. That reproduction of the Trinity appeared in Winkler, art. cit. (n. : ), p. , fig. . In September of , Mara Hofmann posted the Harley page with David pointing to his mouth (f. v.) in her illustrated online portfolio on Parisian illumination between about and in the British Library (http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ TourFr.asp). The two-column miniature in Additional is most recently illustrated in: The Limbourg brothers, op. cit. (n. ), p. .
the breviary of john the fearless
203
tion are wispy in the first twenty gatherings of Harley (illus. -), the extenders are less expansive but much denser in the rest of the breviary (illus. ). As the incipit initial D of Psalm (illus. ) and incipit E of Psalm (illus. ) demonstrate, the ivy leaves in the two-to-three-line-high colored initials before f. in Harley sometimes spike beyond the edges of the initials. There is no such perforation in the remainder of the breviary (illus. ). In addition, the ivy leaves of the pen-and-ink burnished-gold rinceaux before f. are more corpulent than the same ivy leaves in the rest of the breviary. Another distinguishing feature of the burnished-gold rinceaux before f. is the intermittent addition of two or three short, parallel hatches at set intervals across the pen-and-ink vines themselves (illus. -, -). The broader, colored ivy-leaf rinceaux sprays in the upper and lower margins before f. (illus. -) are not as slight and spidery as those elsewhere in the breviary (illus. ). Those broad sprays come in two styles before f. . The ones above and below David in the water (illus. ), for example, more closely resemble the sprays in the rest of the breviary (illus. ), but the stems are broader and the unopened buds are more regularly spaced and straighter. Some of the sprays before f. (illus. -, -) are also enlivened with broad, particolored acanthus leaves with boldly modeled spines heightened with short strokes of white pigment. Comparable acanthus leaves are entirely absent from the remainder of the breviary. The second style of colored rinceaux spray before f. can best be seen both above and below David leading the choir at Psalm (illus. ). That species has even thicker stalks and more boldly colored ivy leaves. Like the miniatures themselves, the colored initials and border flora before f. in Harley are not French in style, but rather resemble those found in southern Netherlandish manuscripts illustrated by the Master of Guillebert de Mets. For example, diapering comparable to that in the incipit initials for Psalms (illus. ) and (illus. ) fills the initial O beneath the frontispiece in the Brussels miscellany (illus. ). Similarly, colored ivy leaves like the ones perforating the incipit initials at Psalms (illus. ) and (illus. ) also puncture the initial E in a celebrated French-language copy of Boccaccio’s Decameron in the Arsenal Library in Paris (MS , illus. ). Although it contains no marks of original ownership, the Arsenal Boccaccio does appear in the posthumous inventory of the library of Philip the Good,
For the Arsenal Boccaccio, see most recently Medieval mastery. Book illumination from Charlemagne to Charles the Bold - (exh. cat., Stedelijk Museum Vander Kelen-Mertens; Louvain ), pp. -, no. , with references to earlier literature.
204
gregory t. clark
. Paris, Bibl. de l’Arsenal, MS (Boccaccio, Decameron), f. : Pampinea’s tale of Master Albert of Bologna and Malgherida de’ Ghisolini (First Day, Tenth Story). Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, s (photo: Bibliothèque Nationale de France).
the breviary of john the fearless
205
duke of Burgundy. As Guillebert de Mets was the scribe, the Arsenal codex was most likely written before . The miniature reproduced here, which illustrates the tenth story on the first day, is by the Guillebert de Mets Master and has, like the transcription, been dated to the s. Short, parallel hatches break up the pen-and-ink rinceaux stems on both the Arsenal page and six of the seven miniature pages before f. in Harley (illus. -, -). Acanthus leaves with prominent spines dotted with white also enrich the particolored rinceaux on the same Arsenal page and six of the seven London ones as well (illus. -, -). Colored ivy-leaf rinceaux with thick stems like those above and below David Leading the Choir at Psalm (illus. ) appear on the incipit page of a Latin-language copy of Valerius Maximus’ Memorable Doings and Sayings in the Royal Library in Brussels (MS , illus. ). The historiated initial U on that page, by the Guillebert de Mets Master, shows Valerius Maximus reading his text. At the bottom of the page are the arms of Godevaert de Wilde, a burgher of Bruges who held several offices at the Burgundian court between and his death in . Like the Arsenal Boccaccio, the Brussels Valerius Maximus and several other manuscripts owned by Godevaert de Wilde eventually found their way into the collection of Philip the Good. In his essay on the London Breviary, Friedrich Winkler rightly noted that the seven compositions before f. in Harley are directly based on their counterparts by the Breviary Master in the book’s other half (illus. , ). The style of the seven Harley miniatures, on the other hand, is entirely characteristic of the Guillebert de Mets Master, as Friedrich Winkler also first recognized. This can be seen by comparing the Harley David in the Water (illus. ) with the Christopher Carrying the Child by the Guillebert de Mets Master in a Book of Hours in the Morgan Library and Museum (MS
For the dating of the Boccaccio miniatures, see Somers, art. cit. (n. ), pp. - and n. . The fullest description of the Brussels Valerius Maximus is in Gaspar and Lyna, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -, no. , Pl. b. For the correct identification of the book’s original owner, however, see La librairie des ducs de Bourgogne. Manuscrits conservés à la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. : Textes didactiques, ed. B. Bousmanne, F. Johan, & C. Van Hoorebeeck (Brussels ), p. . The life of Godevaert de Wilde is outlined in L. Nys and D. Lievois, ‘Not Timotheos Again! The Portrait of Godevaert de Wilde, Receiver of Flanders and of Artois?’, in: ‘Als Ich Can’, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. For this history, see La librairie des ducs de Bourgogne, op. cit. (n. ), pp. -. Winkler, art. cit. (n. : ), p. .
206
gregory t. clark
. Brussels, Royal Library of Belgium, MS (Valerius Maximus, Facta et dicta memorabilia), f. : Valerius Maximus reading his text. Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, s (photo: KIKIRPA).
the breviary of john the fearless
207
. New York, Morgan Library & Museum, MS M. (Book of Hours), f. v.: Christopher carrying the Child. Master of Guillebert de Mets, southern Netherlands, probably Ghent, c.- (photo: MLM).
208
gregory t. clark
M. ; illus. ). Among the many points of similarity are the mature male physiognomical types, the spindly outcroppings of rock, the crowns of the trees, and the scatterings of perfectly round little stones on the barren ground. To sum up thus far, the text in the first twenty gatherings of Harley could presumably have been written either in France or in the southern Netherlands. The miniatures, colored initials, and marginal decoration from ff. to , on the other hand, were almost certainly executed in the southern Netherlands. When did this happen, and at whose orders? Two separate documents mention a breviary or breviaries owned or commissioned by John the Fearless, Margaret of Bavaria, or both. The first document notes that John gave Margaret francs for a breviary and other books in May of . The second document concerns a ‘very beautiful and rich breviary for Paris use’. That breviary was lost when John was murdered at Montereau in but was afterwards restored to his survivors by Jehan Guiot, dean of Notre-Dame de Montereau.21 Some scholars have argued that the London manuscript and the breviary cited in are one and the same, and thus that the London codex was made for the duchess between about and her husband’s murder in . Others have proposed that the London breviary was the one in the duke’s possession at Montereau in , and therefore in fact his. It is, of course, also possible that the breviaries cited in the two documents are one and the same. What is certain is that the London breviary appears neither in John’s posthumous inventory of nor in Margaret’s of . If the London breviary is indeed the ‘very beautiful and rich’ one lost at Montereau, is it absent from both John’s and Margaret’s posthumous inventories because it went straight from Montereau into the hands of John’s son, survivor, and ducal successor, Philip the Good? To be sure, the document states that the Montereau breviary was for Paris use and the London breviary is for Rome use. If the Montereau and London breviaries are in fact one and the same, however, then the breviary looked Parisian when the document was drawn up, and it is easy to imagine the book’s seemingly Parisian decoration superseding its pan-European textual use as a handle for identification.
For Morgan , see G.T. Clark, Made In Flanders. The Master of the Ghent Privileges and manuscript painting in the southern Netherlands in the time of Philip the Good (Turnhout ), pp. -, , and , n. , with references to earlier literature. G. Doutrepont, La littérature française à la cour des ducs de Bourgogne (Paris ; repr. Geneva ), p. , and Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. . Doutrepont, op. cit. (n. ), p. , and Meiss, op. cit. (n. ), p. .
the breviary of john the fearless
209
Whether or not the London breviary was the one lost at Montereau, Philip the Good certainly inherited some manuscripts from his father and at least twelve from his mother as well. If the London breviary was one of them, however, it was not in Philip’s library at the time of his death. Is there any other reason to think that Philip might have owned the London breviary in the decades after his parents’ passings? While the London breviary could have been broken into two halves by its original owner or owners, it was most likely a later one who commissioned the Master of Guillebert de Mets to decorate the first twenty gatherings in Harley . To be sure, John the Fearless did own at least one manuscript in a style that anticipates that of the Guillebert de Mets Master. This is the duke’s book of hours now in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (MS n.a.l. ). Those hours may well have been commissioned for John by his son Philip, who from onward represented his absent father’s interests in the Low Countries from a base in Ghent. The more monumental figures, voluminous draperies, and deeper landscapes in Harley , however, suggest that the seven miniatures by the Guillebert de Mets Master there were not painted before , but rather in the s or s. In this connection, it may be significant that the painters of the Arsenal Boccaccio used a Boccaccio made in Paris around for John the Fearless as their compositional model (Vatican City, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, MS Pal. ). John’s Boccaccio appears in the inventory of his manuscripts and in the posthumous inventory of Philip’s codices. If Philip himself ordered the making of the Arsenal Boccaccio, he must have viewed his father’s Boccaccio as an exemplar worthy of emulation; indeed, the Arsenal codex may have been meant as an homage by Philip to his dynastic predecessor.
See in this regard G. Dogaer & M. Debae, La librairie de Philippe le Bon (exh. cat., Royal Library of Belgium; Brussels ), pp. -, and La librairie des ducs de Bourgogne. Manuscrits conservés à la Bibliothèque royale de Belgique. : Textes liturgiques, ascétiques, théologiques, philosophiques et moraux, ed. B. Bousmanne & C. Van Hoorebeeck (Brussels ), p. . For the Hours of John the Fearless, see most recently Art from the court of Burgundy. The patronage of Philip the Bold and John the Fearless - (exh. cat., Museum of Art; Cleveland ), p. , figs. -, and p. , no. . Philip the Good’s years in Ghent are described in R. Vaughan, John the Fearless. The growth of Burgundian power (London ; repr. Woodbridge [Suffolk] ), pp. -. The derivation of the Arsenal compositions from those in the Vatican Boccaccio was recognized already in by Paul Durrieu (Winkler, art. cit. (n. : ), pp. -, n. ). All of the illuminated pages in the Vatican exemplar are reproduced in color in E. König, Boccaccio Decameron. Alle Miniaturen der ersten Bilderhandschrift (Stuttgart ); the analogous composition to my illus. (f. v. in the Vatican codex) is reproduced there on page .
210
gregory t. clark
In like wise, the seven Harley illuminations emulate the models in a book owned by one or both of Philip the Good’s parents. If Philip did indeed possess the London breviary for a time after John’s or Margaret’s death, then the seven miniatures before f. in Harley – and surely the excised eighth between ff. and as well – comprise a second homage by Philip to his forebears. Whether or not Philip the Good ever owned the London breviary, that book and John the Fearless’ Boccaccio had clearly found their way by the second quarter of the fifteenth century to the southern Netherlands, where they were extensively quarried by local artisans. At the very least, both the breviary and the Arsenal Boccaccio are testimonials to the high esteem in which early fifteenth-century French illumination was held by later generations of painters and patrons.
Notes on Contributors
Hanneke van Asperen works at the Radboud Universiteit in Nijmegen (The Netherlands). Her dissertation that is nearing completion focuses on pilgrims’ badges that are sewn or glued into the margins of medieval manuscripts and the painted badges in the Flemish trompe-l’oeil borders. The badges offer insight into the devotional and related customs of the laity as well as workshop practices during the late Middle Ages. As a specialist on the subject, she has contributed to the exhibition Faith and Fortune on badges, brooches and devotion in medieval Flanders at Bruges. At the moment, she is participating in the Heilig en Profaan project, the third part of book series on pilgrims’ badges that is scheduled to appear in . She also works on Kunera, a searchable database of medieval badges and ampulla’s (www.ru.nl/ckd). Gregory T. Clark () is Professor of Art History at the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. He has published numerous studies on French and Flemish manuscript illumination of the fifteenth century. His two most recent books are Made in Flanders: the Master of the Ghent Privileges and Manuscript Painting in the Southern Netherlands in the Time of Philip the Good () and The Spitz Master: a Parisian Book of Hours (). Herman Th.Colenbrander, studied art history at the University of Amsterdam and graduated in . Stayed for further research in Florence, Rome and Madrid; attached - to the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research NWO in The Hague. Published articles on Andrea del Verrocchio and Leonardo da Vinci, Jean Perréal, the Master of Saint Giles, Hieronymus Bosch, Jan van Eyck, Rembrandt and upheld in his PhD thesis on the Très Riches Heures and the Limbourg Brothers (under supervision of prof. C. Chavannes-Mazel and prof. P. Hoppenbrouwers) at the University of Amsterdam. Rob Dückers () studied art history at Raboud University Nijmegen and codicology at Leiden University. He specializes in medieval codices and in ecclesiastical art, publishing regularly in both fields. Dückers is currently
notes on contributors
working on an international loan exhibition on the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen). He is attached to Emerson College European Center (Well) and to the treasury at the Basilica of Saint Servatius in Maastricht. Eberhard König () studied in Paris, Oxford and Bonn, had fellowships in Oxford and Munich, was University assistant in Kiel and is, since , professor of Art History at the Freie Universität Berlin. Living in Berlin and Paris, he specialized in illuminated manuscripts mostly north the Alps. After a book on the Jouvenel Master and the young Fouquet (Französische Buchmalerei um , Berlin ) he published monographs (and articles) on manuscripts of Books of Hours, the Roman de la Rose, the Divine Comedy, the Decameron, Franz von Retz and the Chastel de Labour, Boccace and Froissart, but also on printed Bibles from Mainz and on Still Life, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, the Louvre and the Uffizi gallery, and two volumes on the Italian Painters of the Renaissance. He has written commentary volumes for the facsimiles of the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, the Paris leaves and the burned Turin Hours, the Belles Heures, the Bedford Hours and the Grandes Heures de Rohan. Margaret Lawson received a BA in studio art and art history from the College of Wooster, Ohio, in and an MA in art conservation from the Cooperstown Program for the Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, Cooperstown, NY, in . She has been a paper conservator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, since . Stephen Perkinson is Associate Professor of Art History at Bowdoin College (Brunswick, Maine, USA). His book, About Face: The Prehistory of Portraiture in Late Medieval France, will be published by the University of Chicago Press in . He has published extensively on issues pertaining to portraiture, with articles in The Art Bulletin, Gesta, The Sixteenth Century Journal, and elsewhere. Pieter Roelofs () has been Curator of Seventeenth Century Dutch Painting at the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam since . From to he was Curator at Museum Het Valkhof, Nijmegen. Together with Rob Dückers he curated the exhibition The Limbourg Brothers: Nijmegen Masters at the French Court (1400-416) (Nijmegen ). Roelofs specializes in seventeenthcentury Dutch art but has published on a wide range of art-historical themes.
notes on contributors
Victor M. Schmidt () studied art history in Groningen and at the Courtauld Institute of Art in London. In he took his PhD with a dissertation on medieval legends about Alexander the Great at the Rijksuniversiteit Groningen, where he also lectures in art history. Schmidt worked as a senior researcher in the period - at the Istituto Universitario Olandese di Storia Dell’Arte in Florence. Major publications: A legend and its image: the Aerial Flight of Alexander the Great in Medieval Art (Groningen ) and Painted Piety: Panel Paintings for Personal Devotion in Tuscany, 1250-1400 (Florence ). In he edited Italian Panel Painting of the Duecento and Trecento for the Center for Advanced Study in Visual Arts of the National Gallery of Art in Washington.
Name Index
Alexander Master, , , , Ambrogio Lorenzetti, , Anne de Bourbon, Baptist Master, , Barthélemy d’Eyck, , Bedford Master, , Bonne d’Armagnac, , Catherine de Bourbon, Charles d’Orleans, , , Charles the Bold, , Charles IV, Charles V, , Charles VI, , , , , , , , , , , , , , Charles VII, , Christine de Pizan, , , Claes Heynenzoon, Conrad van Soest, , , Dom Bernard de Montfaucon, Duke d’Aumale, , , Fra Angelico, Giotto, Godevaert de Wilde, Helmich de Leeuw, , Herman de Limbourg, , , , , , , , Herman Maelwael, Isabelle of France, Portugal, Bavaria, , , , , , , Jacob van Melkeren, (Jan) van Eyck, , , Jean de Bourbon, , , , , , Jean de France duc de Berry (Jean de France; Jean de Berry), , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Jean de Limbourg, , , , , , Jean de Nymègne, Jean Hayton, , Jean IV of Harcourt, Jehannequin of Limbourg, , , Johan Maelwael, , , , , , , , , , , , , , John the Fearless, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , King João I of Portugal, Kolner Meister der Heiligen Veronika, Limbourg Brothers, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Louis d’Orleans, , Louis de Male, Louis de/of Bourbon, , , , Louis of Anjou, Louis II d’Anjou, , ,
name index
Mazarine Master, , , Meister Boucicat, Mazarine, Egerton, Parament Master, , Passion Master, , , , , , , , , , , Passion Master of Mary of Guelders, , , , , , , Paul de Limbourg, , , , , , , , , , , Philip of Artois, , Philip the Bold, , , , , , , , , , , , Philip the Good, , , , , , , , , , , Pietro Lorenzetti, Reinout, duke of Guelders, , René of Anjou, , Robert Campin, , Willem Maelwael, William of Oostervant, William VI of Holland, , Yolande of Aragon, , , , ,
Margaret of Bavaria, , , Marguerite d’Orleans, , Marguerite de Flandre, , Marie (daughter) (de Berry), , , , , , , Marie d’Harcourt, , Martin Gouge, Master Francke, , Master of Catherine of Cleves, , , , , , , , Master of Guelders, Master of Guillebert de Mets, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Master of Mary of Guelders, , Master of the Breviary, , , , , Master of the Holy Ghost, , Master of the Martyrs, Master of the Morgan Infancy Cycle, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , Master of the Prayer Book, Master of Zweder of Culemborg, , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
