VENDU
Illuminated manuscript in Latin and French on vellum, illuminated in the style of the Hoo/Popincourt Master. France, Paris, c. 1450. 12mo (186 x 140 mm). iii + 168 + iii leaves, complete. Collation: 112, 28, 34, 4-118, 124, 13-218, 224. Sporadic modern pencil foliation in right corners (ff. 40, 59, 70, 79, 90). – Text justification: 101 x 68 mm. 15 lines, 1 column, ruled in red. Written in black ink with rubrics in mauve and red in Gothic Textura, f. 70v a prayer written in Bastarda. Calendar alternating in red and blue, principal feasts in gold. – With 12 half-page miniatures, of which the first (f. 25, Annunciation) boasts 5 medallion and 2 additional border illuminations. All miniatures surrounded by broad full-page borders of filigree tendrils with gold leaves, blooms, and fruit in colours as well as gold leaf and blue double borders, from which multicolour acanthus leaves and various flowers sprout and which extend into contouring gilt grounds in centre; with 4-line splendid initial on gold leaf ground below each miniature, in blue or mauve and with white ornamentation, filled with tendrils in blue, mauve, and red, several 3-line initials in gold leaf on blue and mauve ground, and numerous initials over 1 and 2 lines alongside line fillers in same colouring. – Trimmed, some thumbing at edges, very minor pigment loss (ff. 1, 2v, 25), erased note in upper margin of f. 57, otherwise in fine, clean condition. – 18th-century red morocco binding with rich floral gilt spine, boards with double frame structure of gilt fillets, corner florets, inside gilt borders and gilt edges, preserved in a red morocco box by Loutrel.
1 in stock
Splendid series of luminous illustrations in the style of the Hoo/Popincourt Master. this Exquisite Paris Book of Hours from c. 1450 boats 12 masterly miniatures by an especially refined independent artist from the Bedford circle, in the style of the Hoo/Popincourt Master. With its lavishly executed, virtuoso border ornaments, it is a magnificent example of the tradition of Parisian Books of Hours from this era.
Text
ff. 1-12v, Calendar for the use of Paris, fully filled-in, in French, Feasts of the saints in gold: amongst others: 3 January, Geneviefve; 15 January, Mor; 19 May, Yves; 25 June, Eloy; 5 July, Martin; 23 July, La Magdalene; 26 July, Jacques and Christofore; 25 August, Loys; 1 September, Leu and Gile; 9 October, Denis; 11 November, Martin; 25 November, Katharine
ff. 13-17 Gospel Extracts: (f. 13) John, (f. 14) Luke, (f. 15) Matthew, (f. 16v) Mark
ff. 17v-20v Obsecro te
ff. 20v-24 O intemerata
f. 24v blank
ff. 25-91v Office of the Virgin, use of Paris: Matins (ff. 25-47v); Lauds (ff. 48-59v); Prime (ff. 60-65v); Terce (ff. 66-70v); Sext (ff. 71-75v); Nones (ff. 76-79v); Vespers (ff. 80-86v); Compline (ff. 87-91v)
f. 92 lined blank
ff. 93-105r Penitential Psalms
ff. 105-111v Litany, (f. 107v) Genoveva, Radelgundis
ff. 112-115v Hours of the Cross
ff. 116-119 Hours of the Holy Spirit
ff. 120-164 Office of the Dead, use of Paris
ff. 165-168v Suffrages of the Saints: Peter, Paul, Andrew, archangels, etc. (rubrics in French).
Illumination
The present, sumptuous prayerbook has been attributed to an especially refined artist working in the style of the Hoo/Popincourt Master. That master’s hand has been the subject of long consideration within the art historical canon. The celebrated Hoo/Popincourt Master is named after the Popincourt Hours (Europe, private collection; olim Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books)[1]. That manuscript represents Parisian illumination at its most sophisticated in the mid-15th century.
The Popincourt Master is probably the same as the artist once called the Master of Thomas Hoo, who worked first in Paris and then perhaps moved upstream to Rouen, following the retreat of the English armies during the occupation of France in the Hundred Years’ War. He presumably returned with his own atelier to Paris c. 1450, around the time of the creation of the book at hand.[2] In 1975, Leslie Williams wrote a monographic study of a Book of Hours in Dublin,[3] made for Thomas Lord Hoo, chancellor of Normandy and France, and his second wife, Eleanor.[4] Williams recognized that all but one miniature was by a single painter,[5] a follower of the Bedford Master whom he named the Hoo Master. He also ascribed a two-column illumination in the celebrated Shrewsbury Book (Rouen, 1445-1447) to the same master.[6] In light of this, Williams localized the Hoo Hours to Rouen and dated the manuscript to the mid- to late 1440s.[7] Joachim Plotzek ascribed the Popincourt Hours (Europe, private collection) to the newly minted Popincourt Hours Master.[8] Eberhard König described the Popincourt Hours as the best known by the Hoo Master, to whom König ascribed five more codices.[9] Attributions to the Hoo or Popincourt Master have accrued steadily over the two and a half decades since.
The principal manuscript workshop in Paris between c. 1420 and c. 1445 was that of the prolific Bedford Master, who may be identifiable with the painter Jean Haincelin (fl. 1403 to 1448). In illuminations made towards the end of this period, however, the Bedford Master’s distinctive style quite quickly disintegrates into other recognisable hands, presumably those of his former associates or pupils.[10]
The Popincourt Hours, representing the last flowering of the Bedford Master style, has itself become the foundational manuscript for defining the hand of the Hoo/Popincourt Master, who was likely a former apprentice in the Bedford workshop.[11] The Hoo/Popincourt Master’s style evolved from that of the Bedford Master himself, and demonstrates delicately painted figures and a palette with soft, pale colours, within formal, rather static compositions that are often set in airy landscapes. The figures of the Hoo or Popincourt Master tend to be short and male physiognomies often square in shape. Both women and men often sport long, wavy cascades of hair, with the individual strands or clumps of hair frequently left undescribed. Landscapes, even very profound ones, are often topped by burnished-gold grounds. At the same time, the miniatures of the Hoo or Popincourt Master and those of other Bedford followers of the 1440s and 1450s are often hard to distinguish from one another; clearly much more study is needed conclusively to separate all of the responsible hands, no small task given the sizable number of manuscripts, especially Books of Hours, that have been identified. The present book falls into this category, adding an additional monument to the Hoo/Popincourt Master tradition.
Miniatures
f. 25 Annunciation to the Virgin, surrounded by full, floral borders with 5 medallion miniatures in varying frames, including from top left, counter-clockwise: God in heaven with seraphim, Anne and Joachim at the Golden Gate, the Birth of the Virgin, the Virgin praying before an altar, and the marriage of the Virgin and Joseph.
f. 48 Visitation with aged Joseph in the background, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 60 Nativity, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 66 Annunciation to the Shepherds, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 71 Adoration of the Magi, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 76 Presentation in the Temple with the Christ child reaching up to the priest, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 80 Flight to Egypt, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 87 Coronation of the Virgin in heaven, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 93 David in prayer before God, his harp on the ground, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 112 Crucifixion with the Virgin and St. John the Evangelist, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 116 Pentecost, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 120 Funeral Service, ¾ gold bar frame in full borders
f. 165 SS. Peter and Paul, small miniature (7 lines)
f. 165v St. Andrew, small miniature (7 lines)
Provenance
1. Europe, private collection.
Literature
Unpublished.
Further reading:
Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, Parchment and Gold, cat.11, 2015, no. 48.
Les Enluminures, Moyen Age: Renaissance, cat. 1. Paris 1992, no. 24
M. R. James, A Descriptive Catalogue of Fifty Manuscripts from the Collection of Henry Yates Thompson, 1898, pp. 201-205, no. 35.
Scot McKendrick, John Lowden and Kathleen Doyle et. al. Royal Manuscripts: The Genius of Illumination. London 2011.
Plotzek, J. M. Andachtsbücher des Mittelalters aus Privatbesitz, exh. cat. Schnütgen- Museum Cologne, 1987, pp. 112-14, nos. 21-22.
Tenschert, Heribert, Leuchtendes Mittelalter I. 1989, no. 21, pp. 363-64.
L. Williams, ‘A Rouen Book of Hours of the Sarum Use, c. 1444, belonging to Thomas Lord Hoo’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, LXXV, 1975, pp. 189-212.
[1] Dr. Jörn Günther Rare Books, Parchment and Gold, cat.11, 2015, no. 48.
[2] cf. L. Williams, ‘A Rouen Book of Hours of the Sarum Use, c. 1444, belonging to Thomas Lord Hoo’, Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy, LXXV, 1975, pp. 189-212.
[3] Dublin, Royal Irish Academy, Ms. 12.R.31.
[4] Daughter of Lionel Lord Welles; Williams 1975.
[5] The exception being f. 200v, a miniature of Saint Hildevert painted by a known Rouen painter, the Talbot Master.
[6] London, Brit. Lib., Royal 15.E.vi, fol. 4v; London 2011, no. 143.
[7] Because Thomas Lord Hoo married Eleanor no later than about 1444 and left Normandy for England in 1450.
[8] In a Cologne exhibition catalogue published twelve years later, Plotzek 1987, no. 21; olim Günther [2015], no. 48.
[9] Tenschert, Heribert, Leuchtendes Mittelalter I, 1989, pp. 363-64.
[10] One such artist, now known as the Dunois Master, painted the Hours of Jean d’Orleans, comte de Dunois (London, BL. Yates Thompson MS.3), the Hours of admiral Prigent de Coëtivy (Dublin, Chester Beatty Library, W. Ms. 82), and others. As long ago as 1898, M. R. James noted of the Popincourt Hours that its “artistic work resembles rather closely that of the Dunois Hours”. The Danon catalogue said of it, “ces belles miniatures, d’un vif éclat et d’une grande harmonie, sont l’oeuvre d’un artiste dans la ligne du maître des Heures de Dunois”; M.R. James, Descriptive Catalogue, p. 203.
[11] Another recently-published Book of Hours attributed to the Popincourt Master was described by E. Konig in H. Tenschert 1989, no. 56, pp. 360-65, citing the Popincourt Hours for comparison; and a single miniature from yet another was described in S. Hindman, Les Enluminures, Moyen Age: Renaissance, cat. 1. Paris 1992, no. 24.
Monday to Saturday
10am – 1pm and 2:30pm – 7pm
(6pm Monday and Saturday)
© 2023 All rights reserved.