Miniatures

This refined leaf of the Visitation was once part of an important Book of Hours, extensively illuminated around 1400 by a talented painter of Northern France, known only from a Prayer Book and Life of St. Margaret now at the Morgan Library and Museum (MS M.947). Written for the rare use of Soissons, the parent manuscript could have been commissioned by Enguerrand VII de Coucy, Count of Soissons, or someone of his circle. This Book of Hours was once part of the distinguished collection of the Marquess of Bute, at which sale in 1983 it was acquired by Hans P. Kraus and dismembered. Three decorated text leaves have since reappeared, including one that faced it at the Cleveland Museum of Art (2005.203), but this is the first full-page miniature to resurface. Introducing Lauds of the Virgin on f. 46, this Visitation represents Elizabeth as she embraces her cousin Mary and touches her belly to confirm her pregnancy with Christ.

Set on a thin strip of land, against a diaper background, the composition stands out by the subtle balance of gestures, attitudes, and colors, as the illuminator echoes the serpentine line of the women, and the star-shaped folds of their mantles. The painting technique is typical of Northern and Netherlandish illumination. Both faces are modelled on a colored ground, the facial features merely suggested with thick brushstrokes of delayed pigment. Draperies such as the pink mantle of Elizabeth present a light coloring, taking advantage of the preliminary drawing to model the folds, which are further defined by thin and precise lines drawn in black ink.

These stylistic characteristics can be recognized in a slightly earlier Prayer Book and Life of St. Margaret in the Morgan Library and Museum (MS M. 947). The historiated initials, in particular, display comparable features in the drawing of the swirling draperies, the soft application of colors, and the painterly modelling of the faces. The Morgan Life and the text leaves of the Bute-Soissons Hours share the same extravagant borders, with dense and extravagant network of ivy-leaves. Also distinctive is the drawing of the ivy leaves and hairlines, associated with tight swirls in black ink, that recur both in the blank margins of the Visitation and in these two illuminated manuscripts.

In 2017, Dominique Vanwijnsberghe surmised that the Morgan Life of St. Margaret would have been illuminated in Northern France in the early-fifteenth century (Vanwijnsberghe 2007, p. 213). Indeed, the leaves of the Bute-Soissons Hours can be compared with two devotional manuscripts illuminated for the use of Thérouanne around 1400 (Arras, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 822; Warsaw, National Library of Poland, MS Boz 29). Unfortunately, the complete destruction of Thérouanne, ordered by Charles V in 1553, does not facilitate our understanding of manuscript illumination in what was once an affluent town. However, this dazzling leaf may bear witness.

Parent manuscript:

Composed of 196 folios, the Bute-Soissons Hours included a Calendar, Suffrages, Hours of the Virgin for the use of Soissons, with the Visitation introducing Lauds on f. 46, Penitential Psalms and Litany, with St. Medard of Soissons listed, Obsecro te and O Intemerata, a Passion sequence, an extensive sequence of Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday Hours, Gospels extracts, and further prayers. Its illumination was just as impressive: eleven full-page miniatures, including the Visitation on f. 46, were paired with a large decorated initial introducing the main textual sections, and twelve further full-page miniatures opened secondary prayers. Each of these twenty-three miniatures were painted on an inserted folio, blank at the reverse.

Sister leaves (all text):

Cleveland, Cleveland Museum of Art, Jeanne Miles Blackburne Collection, 2005.203. One incipit leaf with a large decorated initial “D”, acquired by Jeanne Miles Blackburne from Kraus. Stephen Fliegel describes it as the opening of Lauds of the Virgin (Fliegel 1999, p. 28): it follows that it would have faced the present leaf, with the Visitation on the right side.

Two text leaves, formerly in the collection of Roger Martin, sold Bloomsbury, 6 July 2021, lot 35. The first is an incipit leaf with a large decorated initial “D”, for the Matins of the Holy Spirit (previously published, Ferrini 1987, no. 73). The second is a text leaf with decorated initials, ruled 12 lines, foliated 47, that followed the present leaf, foliated 46; acquired by R. Martin from Leslie Hindman Auctions, Chicago, 28 July 2009, lot 49.

Provenance:

1. The rare liturgical use of Soissons suggests that the Bute-Soissons Hours was decorated around 1400 for an influent patron of his town, such as Enguerrand VII de Coucy, Count of Soissons (1367-1397) or his daughter Marie I de Coucy, who succeeded him (1398-1404). As described in 1983, the Bute-Soissons Hours offered many full-page miniatures for suffrages of male, mostly warrior saints, and one of the earliest depictions of cardinal Peter of Luxembourg (d. 1387), whose cult was sponsored both by the Celestins and high French nobility. Enguerrand VII de Coucy had founded and established the convent of Celestins of Soissons, built from 1390 to 1408. This patronage granted him the privilege of a burial in the Celestins convent of Paris, after his death at Nicopolis in 1397. This Book of Hours may thus have been commissioned by the count or by someone of his circle.

2. The parent manuscript also included a prayer to St. Anne (ff. 194v-195), added in an Italian hand, which suggests that it was taken to Italy in the fifteenth century.

3. John Crichton-Stuart (1847-1900), third Marquess of Bute, or John Stuart (1713-1792), third Earl of Bute, or his namesake and heir John Stuart, first Marquess (1744-1814). The parent manuscript is recorded in the Bute library catalogue of 1896 for St. John’s Lodge, Regent’s Park, London, as MS 128 (G. 23): “Missale Romanum. A.M.S. with 31 paintings, & illuminated letters. Anteroom 4.A”. Sold by Sotheby’s, Catalogue of the Bute Collection of Forty-Two Illuminated Manuscripts and Miniatures, London, 13 June 1983, lot 6.

4. Hans P. Kraus (1907-1988), New York, acquired at the Bute sale and dismembered. In late 1983, as the leaves were kept in display drawers, thirty-four of them, with full-page miniatures and decorated openings, were stolen. The remainder would have been sold to Bruce P. Ferrini. According to Roger Martin’s inquiries (Bloomsbury, 6 July 2021, lot 35), the stolen leaves were eventually recovered and sold by the insurance company.

Description and condition:

parchment, with one full-page miniature, foliated 46 in the top right corner, reverse blank, some cocklings and very minor losses of color and gold, otherwise excellent condition. 151 x 116 mm.

Literature:

For the parent manuscript and sister leaves, see:

Sotheby’s, Catalogue of the Catalogue of the Bute Collection of Forty-Two Illuminated Manuscripts and Miniatures, London, 13 June 1983, lot 6.

Bruce P. Ferrini, Important Western Medieval Illuminated Manuscripts & Illuminated Leaves, Akron, Ohio, 1987, no 73;

Stephen N. Fliegel, The Jeanne Miles Blackburn Collection of Manuscript Illuminations, Cleveland, 1999, no 20;

Bloomsbury, The Roger Martin Collection of Western Manuscript and Miniatures, London, 6 July 2021, lot 35.

Further literature:
Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, “Moult bons et notables.” L’enluminure tournaisienne à l’époque de Robert Campin (1380-1430), Paris, Leuven, and Dudley, Mass., 2007.