Works of Art

The woodcut of the Arrest of Christ in this Coffret is unique.  It exists in two similar versions, this one and a print on the detached lid from a Coffret in the BnF which has a slightly different different inscription (Paris, BnF, Département des estampes et de la photographie, Musée Obj-186-PT ET; on which see Lemoisne 1930, n. CXVII; Schreiber 1931, n. 5; fig. 1). The BnF example lacks the last four words of the inscription, so it cannot be the same plate.  It is unclear whether it is missing the ornament on the left side of the print, because it is trimmed to the edge of its left framing line.

Many of the Passion woodcuts in the Coffrets derive from scenes in an unique, exceptionally large xylograph of the Large Passion, hand colored and heightened with gold, associated with Jean d’Ypres and now in Paris, BnF, Département des estampes et de la photographie, Reserve, EA-5-II (Boitie Ecu) (fig. 2).  The present scene is found in the upper left corner of the Large Passion and is used in our woodcut with little modification of the composition but with a somewhat different palette. The present woodcut is also virtually identical to that attributed to Jean d’Ypres in a Book of Hours first printed in 1496 by Simon Vostre in and then in 1497 by Philippe Pigouchet (compare fig. 3, in a Book of Hours using the same plates from 1507).

On the left frame of the woodcut appears an ornamental column in a style that appears to be later than the print.  This ornament also appears in the margin of a Last Supper in a Coffret found in Paris (ENSBA, inv. MAS 1069, fig. 4).

The xylographic text in the Arrest of Christ print comes from the Gospel of John, “Si ergo me queritis sinite hos abire ut impleretur sermo quem dixit quia quos dedisti michi non perdidi ex eis quemquam. Symon ero petrus habens” (John 18: 8-10, translation [Jesus answered] I told you that I am he. If you are looking for me, then let these men go. This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: I have not lost one of those you gave me. Then Simon Peter, who had [a sword, drew it and struck the high priest’s servant, cutting off his right ear]).  The function of the text on the Coffrets remains to be studied.

The present Coffret was included in the Jammes sale (lot 19, sold for 37,176 Euros), to a Private Collection.

Condition

Original coloring by stencil consistent with the related example of the print in the BnF, some fading, the closure missing and the right side of the box partially detached from the front; the image has suffered, there is a lacuna in the center of several cm. square, but on the whole all the persons are intact with the exception of the Roman soldier in the foreground where there is a lack. The Coffret may have once had a leather cushion; no leather covers the bare wood on its underside.

Background

In 2019, Severine Lepape recorded 139 examples of woodcuts either in Gothic Coffrets or separated from them, of which 67 are in the style of Jean d’Ypres and 72 are in heterogeneous styles.  Of these, 110 Coffrets still preserve their prints.  A few of the larger examples preserve their secret compartments or their horsehair cushions, evidence that they once contained relics and were carried as backpacks.  All include rare hand-colored prints, some unique like this one, others surviving in only a few impressions.  Any study of the origins of French printmaking must consider these Coffrets and their remarkable prints.  The body of material is exceptional, for the viewing context helps explain the function of the prints. 

A sale in 2007 of twenty-two Gothic Coffers – the largest single collection formed by André and Marie-Thérèse Jammes – prompted renewed interest in these art works and resulted in a flurry of new studies.  Significant among these are investigations by Severine Lepape and Michel Huynh on the typology of the coffers, the identity and attribution of the prints (including a yet-unpublished census), and the union of print and coffer.   

The recent discovery of a Northern Renaissance painting of the Rest on the Flight, published by Sandra Hindman in 2015, prompts a reconsideration of the Coffrets with prints as traveling boxes.  Painted in Antwerp c. 1530 by an artist working in the tradition of Joachim Patinir, the painting includes a detail of a large, partially opened box.  A small leather-bound book with clasps, a rosary composed of precious gems, a brush, scissors, and two finger-rings all nest on a bunch of diaphanous white cloth inside the box.  This detail survives as the only known contemporary depiction of these Gothic Coffrets.  The painting thus encourages us to revisit the question of the purpose of these traveling boxes – symbols of “the house and the garden of the Virgin.”  The painting helps clarify the interactive viewing context of the Gothic Coffrets and confirms the long-held theory of their use as book boxes. 

The artistic milieu for the production of the prints also merits closer attention.  Attribution of the designs for the prints to Jean d’Ypres is now accepted (Lepape 2019).  This artist is from a dynasty of painters from the north of France is thought to be identical with the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne de Bretagne (variously known also as the Master of the Apocalypse Rose of the Sainte-Chapelle, the Master of the Chasse à la licorne, the Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist).This multi-media artist was responsible for painted altarpieces, stained glass windows, designs for tapestries, illuminated manuscripts (his eponymous Book of Hours of Anne de Bretagne is Paris, BnF, NAL 1320 of 1498), and designs for woodcuts.  His style, as well as his repertory of models, establishes him as the artistic heir of the Master of Coëtivy, the latter possibly identical with the painter, Colin d’Ypres (active 1450-1485).  The documented career of Jean d’Ypres dates from c. 1490 to 1508 and corresponds with that of the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne de Bretagne. 

Further investigation of these practical, accessible, and intriguing objects promises new insights into the relationship between devotional imagery and visual culture in Early Modern France. 

Selected Literature

Avril, François, and Nicole Reynaud. Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440-1520. Paris, 1993, pp. 265-270. 

Boerner – C. G. Boerner, Les Enluminures, and Helmut H. Rumbler Kunsthandlung.Woodcuts in French Late Gothic Coffrets:  an exhibition presented on the occasion on the IFPDA Print Fair in New York, 2008. 

Field, Richard.  Fifteenth-Century Woodcuts and Metalcuts from the National Gallery of Art, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., 1965. 

Hindman, Sandra.  “Gothic Traveling Coffers Revisited,” in Le Livre, La Photographie, L’Image & La Lettre.  Essays in Honor of André Jammes, ed. Sandra Hindman, Isabelle Jammes, Bruno Jammes and

Hans P. Kraus Jr, pp. 312-327, Paris, 2015. 

Huyhn, Michel and Severine Lepape.  “De la rencontre d’une image et d’une boite:  les coffrets à estampe,” La Revue des musées de France, no. 4 (2011), pp. 37-50. 

Jammes: Coffrets – Pierre Bergé & Associes,  Vente Collection Marie-Thérèse et Andre Jammes, Coffrets de Messagers, Images du Moyen Age et Traditions Populaires, Paris, Drouot Richelieu, 7 Novembre 2007. 

Karr Schmidt, Suzanne and Kimberly Nichols.  Altered and Adorned.  Using Renaissance Prints in Daily Life, exhibition catalogue, The Art Institute of Chicago in association with Yale University Press, New Haven and London, 2011. 

Kup, Karl.  “A Fifteenth-Century Coffret,” Renaissance News 9 (1956), pp. 14-19. 

Kup, Karl.  “Notes on a Fifteenth-Century Cofferet,” The Connoisseur 140 (1957), pp. 62-66. 

Lehrs. Max.  “Die decorative Verwendung von Holzschnitten im XV. und XVI. Jahrhundert,” Jahrbuch der Königlich Preussichsen Kunstsammlungen, 29 (1908), pp. 183-194. 

Lemoisne, P.-A.  Les xylographies du XIV^e et du XV^e siècle au cabinet des estampes de la Bibliothèque Nationale, 2 vols., Paris and Brussels, 1927. 

Lepape, Severine.  “Du nationalism au surréalism: une petite histoire de coffrets,” Bulletin du bibliophile, no. 1 (2012), pp. 11-23. 

Lepape, Severine.  “When Assemblage Makes Sense:  An Example of a Coffret à Estampe,” Art in Print, 2, no. 4 (2012). 

Lepape, Severine, et al.   Mystérieux coffrets: Estampes au temps de La Dame à la licorne(exhibition catalogue), Paris, Musee du Cluny, 2019. 

Nettekoven, Ina.  Der Meister der Apokalypsenrose der Sainte Chapelle und die Pariser Buchkunst um 1500, Ars Nova, 9, Turnhout, 2004. 

Parshall, Peter W, Rainer Schoch, David S. Areford, Richard S. Field, and Peter Schmidt.  Origins of European Printmaking, exhibition catalogue, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art in association with Yale University Press, New Haven, CT, 2005. 

Primeau, Thomas. “Coloring within the Lines:  The Use of Stencil in Early Woodcuts, “Art in Print, 3, no. 3 (2013). 

Schreiber, W. L.  Handbuch der Holz- und Metallschnitte des XV. Jahrhunderts, 12 vols., Leipzig, 1926-1930. 

Schreiber/Heitz – Wilhelm Ludwig Schreiber, Kassetten-Holzschnitte des X. Jahrhunderts aus

Sammlungen in Frankreich, Deutschland, Österreich, Schweiz, Holland, Italien, England und Amerika, Strassburg ,1931 (Paul Heitz, ed., Einblattdrucke des Funfzehnten Jahrhunderts, vol. 76).