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8 - [ENLUMINATION] Three bifeuillets from an illuminated Pontifi…
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Estimate €5,000 - €7,000
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[ENLUMINATION] Three bifeuillets from an illuminated Pontifical with notated music. In Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment. France, Paris, second quarter 14th century or third quarter 14th century. Illuminated by artists under the influence of Jean Pucelle (active in Paris from 1319-1334). Size of leaves (folded): 280 x 202 mm Three double leaves, gothic script, text on two columns, music in square notation on staves drawn in red on four lines, ruled in ink, contemporary and ornate foliation: CLXX [170] / CLXXI [171] / CLXXIIII [174] / CLXXV [175] / CXCIII [193] / CC [200], headings in red, small initials in burnished gold on pink and blue backgrounds with white highlights, larger initials decorated 3 lines high in blue or pink on pink or blue backgrounds with white highlights and burnished gold decoration and coloured vine leaves, with extensions of coloured vines in the margins, large burnished gold, blue and pink baquettes with zoomorphic hybrid or dragon motifs, or hooded figure with owl, crowned head (Saint Louis?), padlocked initials; large historiated initial P depicting a mitred bishop (P/er omnia secula seculorum... (fol. 3 recto, right-hand column)); musical staves drawn in red ink, with music notated square. These three bifeuillets are taken from a dismembered Pontifical, which must have been very luxurious. A "Pontifical" contains the texts of the ceremonies incumbent on bishops and pontiffs. In terms of style, these leaves can be compared with witnesses associated with Parisian illumination from the second quarter of the 14th century (or the beginning of the third quarter?), in terms of layout, workmanship and certain iconographic details. These leaves seem to us to be related to the work of the "Pucellian" illuminators influenced by Jean Pucelle, to whom we owe, for example, the Belleville Breviary (Paris, BnF, latin 10483 and 10484), the Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux now preserved in New York, Cloisters, Acc. 54. 1.2 (Fastes du gothique, 1981, no. 239) and the Breviary of Jeanne d'Evreux (Chantilly, Musée Condé, MS 51). More research is needed, but the proximity of the running titles in the upper margins with foliation in Roman numerals and filigree decoration is reminiscent of the work of an ornamentalist close to Jean Pucelle, Jacquet Maci, for example in an illuminated Bible (Montpellier, Bibliothèque interuniversitaire, H 195) [see F. Avril, "Un enlumineur ornementiste parisien de la première moitié du XIVe siècle : Jacob Mathey (Jaquet Maci?)", in Bulletin monumental (1971), 129, no. 4, pp. 249-264]. The vignette decoration, the ornate initials and the drollery in the margins are perhaps to be compared with an illuminator-decorator known as Anciau de Sens (Ancelot) who worked with Jean Pucelle on the Belleville Breviary (he executed certain figured initials and their antennae with plant motifs; see Rouse and Rouse, Manuscripts and their Makers, 2000, vol. II, p. 14), also mentioned in the colophon (fol. 642) of the Billyng Bible completed in 1327 (Paris, BnF, latin 11935): "Jehan Pucelle, Anciau de Cens, Jacquet Maci il hont enluminé ce livre-ci; ceste lingne de vermeillon que vous vees fu escrite en l'an de grace .CCC. et XXVII. en un juedi darrenier jour d'avril, veille de mai...". Some zoomorphic hybrids, spitting out small golden discs, are also reminiscent of the decorations in the Pontifical à l'usage de Senlis (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, MS 148), painted around 1350 and associated with several Pucelli artists, one of whom is the "Master of the Remède de Fortune". The illuminator responsible for the historiated initial depicting a bishop wearing his mitre is clearly an artist of some finesse. The bishop's three-lobed mitre is reminiscent of those worn by bishops painted by artists in the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre (Paris, BnF, NAL 3145, c. 1336-1340, f. 102), including one to whom the cycle of Saint Louis in these Hours is attributed (ff. 85v ff; this artist is also known as the "First Master of the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre", see M. A. Keane, "Collaboration in the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre", in Jean Pucelle: Innovation and Collaboration in Manuscript Painting, ed. K. Pyun and A.D. Russakoff, London, 2013, pp. 131-148). He is an artist who worked in collaboration with Jean le Noir, Jean Pucelle's successor, in the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre (Paris, BnF, NAL 3145) but also in these same Hours of Jeanne de Navarre with "Mahiet" or the "Master of the lives of Saint Louis" [artist involved in some thirty manuscripts; see Avril in Fastes du gothique (1981), no. 240, no. 247: artist identifiable with the Norman Mathieu Le Vavasseur, active in Paris (?); M.-T. Gousset, "Libraires d'origine normande à Paris au XIVe siècle", in Manuscrits et enluminures dans le monde normand, Xe-XVe siècles, ed. by P. Bouet and M. Dosdat, 2005, pp. 169-180: "Matthieu Le Vavasseur", pp. 178-180; M. Kuroiwa, "Working with Jean Pucelle and his Successors: the Case of the Saint Louis Master (Mahiet ?), in Jean Pucelle: Innovation and Collaboration; London, 2013]. We feel that it is more appropriate to look for the artist of the initial of the present folios around the painter "Mahiet". The leaves from the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre illuminated by "Mahiet" (ff. 140-193v), who also worked with Jean Pucelle on the Belleville Breviary, contain amusing features at the end of the spandrel or in the margins that are reminiscent of those on the leaves from this Pontifical. A comparison can also be made with the miniatures attributed to the "Master of the Life of Saint Louis" (Mahiet) and/or to a follower of Mahiet in a Bible historiale preserved in Montpellier, Bibl. de médecine, H 49, but dated earlier to around 1312-1317; see catalogue by E. Fournié, Les manuscrits de la Bible historiale (2009, CRH electronic journal)). Should the leaves from this dismembered Pontifical be seen as part of a group of liturgical manuscripts, workshop works around Jean Lenoir and the Pucellian artists of the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre, in particular the "third artist of the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre", produced for use in Paris and then included in the inventories of the Sainte-Chapelle (Fastes du gothique, no. 268, Missel de Paris, Lyon, BM, MS 5122; no. 269, Evangeliary, Arsenal MS 161; Epistolier, London, BL, Yates Thompson 34; see F. Avril, "Trois manuscrits de l'entourage de Jean Pucelle", in Revue de l'art, 1970 / 3, no. 9, pp. 37-48; M.-P. Laffitte, Le Trésor de la Sainte-Chapelle, ed. J. Durand, 2001, notes 51, 52, 53)? Another manuscript with related drolleries is the Bréviaire à l'usage de Paris, known as the Bréviaire de Charles V, dating from around 1364-1370 (Paris, BnF, Latin 1052), in particular these dragons spitting out golden besants in a row.
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Auction time 06/17/2026 at 2:00 PM
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