The Betrayal of Christ on the Mount Olives from the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre | |
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Folio 85 verso, the introductory picture to the Office of the Passion | |
Artist | Jean Le Noir |
Year | 1336-1340 |
Medium | Glair and gold on vellum |
Dimensions | 180 x 135 mm |
Location | Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris |
The Hours of Jeanne de Navarre is an illuminated book of hours with miniatures painted by Jean Le Noir. The book was commissioned by Philip VI of Valois and his wife, Blanche de Navarre, for Jeanne de Navarre, Queen of Navarre. The book was created sometime between 1336 and 1340 and is now in the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. [1]
The illuminated book consists of 271 folios written in Latin. [2] There are 32 illustration miniatures. [2]
The creation of books of hours during the middle ages was a very common process for female members of the royal family. The first king of France, John the Good, was especially interested in illuminated manuscripts. [3] Books of hours, prior to the thirteenth century, were given as gifts to the church. As more and more aristocrats wanted to practice inside of their own homes, more of these books were commissioned for private religious devotion. These books are very similar to psalter books. This book can also be seen as a form of connoisseurship where some books have no evidence of usage of finger prints or rubbing on the book. [4]
The Hours of Jeanne de Navarre features border bars and ivy on the larger illuminations of this book, which is a very similar stylistic approach to other illuminated manuscripts. [5] The ivy included coloring of blue, yellow, and red which is similar to that of the French Psalterium. [5] A Psalterium, contains religious lyrics and is used in religious context by priests for prayer or practice. [6] The ivy is also a religious symbol, mostly connected to the idea of immortality. [5]
This image is the introductory picture to the Office of Passion section of the book of hours. This section is highly important as the Passion highly focalized piety and devotion which was very important during the medieval period. [7]
The composition of the manuscript page is very crowded. All of the figures are overlapping with each other and interacting in some way. Jesus is the man in the middle wearing a red dress robe with a blue shawl covering himself. [2] Peter is shown to the left of Jesus wearing a blue tunic and shawl. Malchus, who was a servant of the Jewish High Priest Caiaphas, is shown towards Peter's feet getting his ear cut off. [8] Jesus is seen being arrested by a group of Roman soldiers who are on the right side of the page. Jesus had been betrayed earlier in the day by one of his Apostles, Judas Iscariot. [9] Judus got thirty pieces of silver for his betrayal and lead the soldiers to the garden where Jesus and the disciples were on Mount Olive. [9] The figures on the left that include Jesus and his disciples, all have golden halos around their heads which is a sign of divinity. Jesus specifically, has golden rays on his halo.
In the Gospel of Mark, it has been said that a young man ran away when Jesus was captured, academics have assumed that this is the boy hiding in the bush at the bas-de-page. The Gospel mentions his nakedness which is not depicted here, however this interpretation could be that he is looking for his shoes in the bush when he originally fled as he is no longer wearing shoes.
Jeanne de Navarre is also referred to as Joan II of Navarre. Jeanne de Navarre was the daughter of the French King Louis X and Margaret of Burgundy. [10] Philip VI, who gifted her the book, was Jeanne's second cousin on her fathers side and the King of France beginning in 1328. [2] He came to terms with Jeanne and her husband, Philip III, in where they renounced their claim to Champagne and Brie in exchange for the right of Navarre. [11] Together they ruled from 1328 to their respective deaths in 1348 and 1349. [3]
A soldier appears in the small initial D looking at the observer through his half-opened visor. This is a motif that was invented by Pucelle.
The Hours of Jeanne de Navarre was modeled on the first volume of the Belleville Breviary. [2] They have similar coloring, lettering, and the foliage outline of the words. Jeanne de Navarre's book also contains miniatures depicting the four offices devoted to the Trinity, the Virgin Mary, Saint Louis, and the Passion that is also in the Belleville Breviary. This combination is rare in books of Hours. [2]
The composition The Betrayal of Christ on the Mount Olives from the Hours of Jeanne de Navarre is based on a miniature from the Hours de Jeanne d'Evreux created by Jean Pucelle which is folio 15 verso ill. [2] A trait that Le Noir picks up from Pucelle is the tiny soldier peeking out of the D initial on the page. [2]
Jean Le Noir was an active illuminator in Paris between 1335 and 1380. [12] He was a student of Jean Pucelle: scholars even assumed Le Noir took over Pucelle's workshop when he passed. Le Noir and his daughter, Bourgot Le Noir, worked for Yolande of Flanders and later the King. [13] In 1364, he worked for Charles V and soon after they worked in Bourges for the Duke of Berry during the 1370s. [14] His title during the time this manuscript was created was Jehan Lenior, enluminieur.
Earlier research on this book attributed Jean Pucelle as the creator due to the coloring and the shape of the figures. However, in 1970, it was discovered that Pucelle had died in 1334 before the book was created. [2] The references to Navarre, Evreux, and Burgandy, but not Champagne, point to the book being created after 1336 when Jeanne had given up that title. Research also indicates that four miniaturists were involved in this book process. [2] The first artist would have come from a collective groups of artist studying together and would become the main master of the book. This would have been the role of Jean Le Noir. He would have been in charge of the most pictures in the codex such as the Office of the Blessed Virgin and the Office of Passion. [2]
During the fifteenth century, the manuscript was in the possession of Anne Belline, who was a nun at the Convent of Cordelieres de Lurcines. [2] The book remained with the nunnery up through the seventeenth century. [2] The manuscript then came into the possession of Lady Ashburnham and then Henery Yates Thompson. [2] It was then brought into the art collection of Baron Edmond and Alexandrine de Rothschild. [2] It was previously believed the book was given to Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris. [2] in the 19th century, but as explained in Christopher De Hamel's Meetings With Remarkable Manuscripts it was actually purchased by the French government from the West German government in the 1960s having been in the possession of Herman Goering during the Second World War.Special:BookSources/9781594206115
The Ashburnham Pentateuch is a late 6th- or early 7th-century Latin illuminated manuscript of the Pentateuch. Although it originally contained all five books of the Pentateuch, it is now missing the whole of Deuteronomy as well as sections of the other five books.
A psalter is a volume containing the Book of Psalms, often with other devotional material bound in as well, such as a liturgical calendar and litany of the Saints. Until the emergence of the book of hours in the Late Middle Ages, psalters were the books most widely owned by wealthy lay persons. They were commonly used for learning to read. Many psalters were richly illuminated, and they include some of the most spectacular surviving examples of medieval book art.
Joan of Évreux was Queen of France and Navarre as the third wife of King Charles IV of France.
John of Berry or John the Magnificent was Duke of Berry and Auvergne and Count of Poitiers and Montpensier. His brothers were King Charles V of France, Duke Louis I of Anjou and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy. He was Regent of France from 1380 to 1388 during the minority of his nephew Charles VI.
Books of hours are Christian prayer books, which were used to pray the canonical hours. The use of a book of hours was especially popular in the Middle Ages, and as a result, they are the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and psalms, often with appropriate decorations, for Christian devotion. Illumination or decoration is minimal in many examples, often restricted to decorated capital letters at the start of psalms and other prayers, but books made for wealthy patrons may be extremely lavish, with full-page miniatures. These illustrations would combine picturesque scenes of country life with sacred images.
Jean Pucelle was a Parisian Gothic-era manuscript illuminator who excelled in the invention of drolleries as well as traditional iconography. He is considered one of the best miniaturists of the early 14th century. He worked primarily under the patronage of the royal court and is believed to have been responsible for the introduction of the arte nuovo of Giotto and Duccio to Northern Gothic art. His work shows a distinct influence of the Italian trecento art Duccio is credited with creating. His style is characterized by delicate figures rendered in grisaille, accented with touches of color.
The Belleville Breviary is an illuminated breviary. It was produced in Paris some time between 1323 and 1326 by the artist known as Jean Pucelle, probably for Jeanne de Belleville, the wife of Olivier IV de Clisson. The breviary is divided into two volumes of 446 and 430 folios. Volume 1 contains the prayers used during the summer, while volume 2 contains those used during the winter.
The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux is an illuminated book of hours in the Gothic style. According to the usual account, it was created between 1324 and 1328 by Jean Pucelle for Jeanne d'Evreux, the third wife of Charles IV of France. It was sold in 1954 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where it is now part of the collection held at The Cloisters, and usually on display.
Barthélemy d'Eyck, van Eyck or d' Eyck, was an Early Netherlandish artist who worked in France and probably in Burgundy as a painter and manuscript illuminator. He was active between about 1440 to about 1469. Although no surviving works can be certainly documented as his, he was praised by contemporary authors as a leading artist of the day, and a number of important works are generally accepted as his. In particular, Barthélemy has been accepted by most experts as the artists formerly known as the Master of the Aix Annunciation for paintings, and the Master of René of Anjou for illuminated manuscripts. He is thought by many to be the Master of the Shadows responsible for parts of the calendar of the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.
The Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany is a book of hours, commissioned by Anne of Brittany, Queen of France to two kings in succession, and illuminated in Tours or perhaps Paris by Jean Bourdichon between 1503 and 1508. It has been described by John Harthan as "one of the most magnificent Books of Hours ever made", and is now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France, catalogued as Ms lat. 9474. It has 49 full-page miniatures in a Renaissance style, and more than 300 pages have large borders illustrated with a careful depiction of, usually, a single species of plant.
M. Moleiro Editor is a publishing house specialising in high-quality facsimile reproductions of codices, maps and illuminated manuscripts. Founded in Barcelona in 1991, the firm has reproduced many masterpieces from the history of illumination.
The Black Hours, MS M.493 is an illuminated book of hours completed in Bruges between 1460 and 1475. It consists of 121 pages (leaves) with Latin text written in Gothic minuscule script. The words are arranged in rows of fourteen lines and follow the Roman version of the texts. The lettering is inscribed in silver and gold and placed within borders ornamented with flowers, foliage and grotesques, on pages dyed a deep blueish black; hence its designation as a Black books of hours. The book contains fourteen full-page miniatures and opens with the months of the liturgical calendar, followed by the Hours of the Virgin, and ends with the Office of the Dead.
The Petites Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry is an illuminated book of hours commissioned by John, Duke of Berry between 1375 and 1385–90. It is known for its ornate miniature leaves and border decorations.
Jean Le Noir was a French manuscript illuminator active in Paris between 1335 and 1380. He was a pupil of Jean Pucelle. His main work is the Psalter of Bonne de Luxembourg.
The Psalter of Bonne de Luxembourg is a small 14th-century illuminated manuscript in tempera, grisaille, ink and gold leaf on vellum. It is held in the collection of The Cloisters, New York, where it is usually on display.
The Pseudo-Jacquemart was an anonymous master illuminator active in Paris and Bourges between 1380 and 1415. He owed his name to his close collaboration with painter Jacquemart de Hesdin.
School of Paris refers to the many manuscript illuminators, whose identities are mostly unknown, who made Paris an internationally important centre of illumination throughout the Romanesque and Gothic periods of the Middle Ages, and for some time into the Renaissance. Among the most famous of these artists were Master Honoré, Jean Pucelle and Jean Fouquet.
Bourgot Le Noir was a French female illuminator in the mid-fourteenth century who assisted her father, Jean Le Noir, with his work.
The book of hours of Joan of France is a 15th-century illuminated manuscript forming a book of hours, named after Joan of France, Duchess of Bourbon, who owned the book in the 15th century. After her death, it passed to Catherine of Armagnac, whose coat of arms was added to the book. After her death, the whereabouts of the book are unknown; it reappeared again in the late 19th century when it was bought by private collector Victor Martin Le Roy. It then passed to his son-in-law, art historian Jean-Joseph Marquet de Vasselot. It was again sold in 2011, and then bought by the Bibliothèque nationale de France, thanks to funding from private donors. It is classified as a national treasure of France. The rich decoration, including 28 full-page miniatures, was mostly made by the so-called Master of Jouvenel.
Gothic book illustration, or gothic illumination, originated in France and England around 1160/70, while Romanesque forms remained dominant in Germany until around 1300. Throughout the Gothic period, France remained the leading artistic nation, influencing the stylistic developments in book illustration. During the transition from the late Gothic period to the Renaissance, book illustration lost its status as one of the most important artistic genres in the second half of the 15th century, due to the widespread adoption of printing.
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