Beschreibung:

Illuminated Book of Hours leaf.- Leaf from an illuminated Book of Hours with the Four Evangelists, single leaf 155 x 110mm., in Latin, on parchment, single column, the first 4 lines of John's Gospel on the recto, ruled in brown ink, written in textura in brown ink, the 2-line heading in red ink, on the recto, a large miniature divided into four vignettes and two registers, showing the Evangelists, within a full border of swirling leaves, flowers, fruits, and inhabited by a peacock; one decorated illuminated 2-line initial 'I', leaf in very fresh condition, in a richly carved gold frame under museum glass, minor losses of pigments and smudging in places, Northern France (possibly Rouen), [c.1480]. ⁂ A lavishly illuminated leaf from a Book of Hours produced in the 1480s, and associable to the workshop, or a close follower of the highly esteemed Maître de l'Échevinage. The miniature displays iconographical features characteristic of this artist, named Master of the Échevinage after a group of manuscripts he illuminated for the Council of Aldermen (échevins) of Rouen, and now in the Bibliothèque nationale in Paris, and also known as Master of Latini Geneva, from a manuscript of Brunetto Latini's Trèsor of the Genevan Library. He worked in Rouen from 1450 to about 1485, and his influence was immense. Generally, this miniature shows striking similarities with that opening the Gospel Lessons in a Book of Hours held in the Morgan Library in New York (MS M. 1093, fol. 13r), produced by the same Master and his workshop in ca. 1470. Literature: R.S. Wieck, Time Sanctified. The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, London 1988; C. Rabel, "Artiste et clientèle à la fin du Moyen Age. Les manuscrits profanes du Maître de l'Échevinage de Rouen", Revue de l'Art, 84 (1989), pp. 48-60; Ead., "Master of the Rouen Échevinage", J. Turner (ed.), The Dictionary of Art, London 1996, vol. 20, s.v.; R.S. Wieck, Painted Prayers: The Book of Hours in Medieval and Renaissance Art, New York 1997, p. 69.