Beschreibung:

Master of Jean de Mauléon (active 1520s) BOOK OF HOURS, use of Rome, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1525] An exceptional Book of Hours painted with finesse and flamboyance by the Master of Jean de Mauléon, one of the ‘Bellemare group’ of artists whose manuscripts rank among the highest achievements of French Renaissance painting. 144 x 85mm. i + 156 + i, complete, collation: 1-34, 410, 5-88, 916, 10-198, 206, 20 lines in a humanist script, ruled space: 94 x 47mm, one- to three-line gilt initials on black grounds throughout, gilt line-fillers of logs and cordelières, text pages bordered with gilt cordelières with three-looped knots, 12 quarter-page calendar miniatures (33-46 x 48mm) representing the occupations of the months with signs of the Zodiac inset, 25 small miniatures of the Evangelists and the Saints on black backgrounds illustrating the Gospel Extracts and the Suffrages, and 17 full-page miniatures set within Italianate tabernacle frames, facing text pages with full panel borders alternately a) scattered insects and flowers, sometimes acanthus, on gold grounds and b) grotesques drawn from classical iconography and architectural motifs on black grounds. French 18th-century citron morocco, gilt line borders and spine decoration; red morocco doublures with gilt-tooled borders and fleur-de-lys corner ornaments; edges gilt. Red morocco slip-case, gilt title on spine. Content: Calendar ff.1v-13; Gospel extracts ff.15-19; Passion according to John ff.19-26v; Stabat mater ff.26v-28; Hours of the Virgin, use of Rome ff.29-79v: matins f.29, lauds f.42, prime f.51, terce f.54, sext f.58, none f.60, vespers f.65, compline f.71; Hours of the Cross ff.79v-84; Hours of the Holy Spirit ff.85-87; Penitential Psalms with Litany ff.88-102; Office of the Dead, use of Rome, ff.103-123v and f.127-134v (misbound); Suffrage to the Trinity ff.124-125; Obsecro te ff.126-126v and ff.135-136 (misbound); O intemerata ff.136-137v; Suffrages ff.137v-149; Prayers to be said during Mass ff.149v-150; Prayers to St Gregory ff.151-156. Illumination: The extraordinarily rich miniatures are the work of a Parisian illuminator known as the Master of Jean de Mauléon, one of the so-called ‘Bellemare group’ of artists whose manuscripts rank among the highest achievements of French Renaissance painting. The group is named for their association with Noël Bellemare, the Antwerp-trained painter under whose direction an entirely new style was introduced to French manuscript illumination in the second quarter of the 16th century. First identified by Dr Myra Orth – who named them the ‘1520s Hours Workshop’ – the atelier was responsible for illuminating at least 26 high quality manuscripts, dating from c.1522 until c.1551, the majority of these small-format Books of Hours written in a delicate humanistic script. Today, the three principal artists to have emerged from the group, to whom the illumination of two or more manuscripts is attributed, are the Master of Jean de Mauléon, the Doheny Master, and the Master of the Getty Epistles. The illuminators evidently shared model drawings, working in a distinctive style that evolved across almost three decades. The group appears to have coalesced under the artistic direction of Noël Bellemare, whose career in Paris and entrepreneurial function at the head of the 1520s Workshop has been established by Guy-Michel Leproux (see Leproux, ‘Bellemare’, 1998; La Peinture, 2001). Bellemare is first documented in Paris in 1515, when records of his work as peintre at the Hôtel-Dieu begin, and he remained in the city until his death in 1546. Active as a painter in Antwerp, his work in Paris was first discovered in designs supplied to the stained-glass maker Jean Chastellain: the precedent for painters to supply drawings for stained glass and for tapestry – figural art forms closely related to manuscript illumination in the 16th century – was well established, and Leproux proposes that Bellemare’s relationship with