Pictures of the Month | December 2011
Object of the Month
December 2011
Workshop of the Master of the Boucicaut Hours (active about 1400-30)
Leaf from a Book of Hours with the
Flight into Egypt. Paris, 1408
Tempera colours, gold and ink on vellum
Purchased 1969 (No. 69.6)
‘Books of Hours were the medieval “best seller”, the book most likely to have been owned by the most people, from kings and queens to merchants and widows. The prayers and images within them, which could be personalised, helped lay people to imitate the devotions of monks and nuns and to focus their minds on the holy stories, thus achieving closer union with God and the saints. The often small and jewel-like quality of many of these manuscripts suggests that they were also coveted accessories that bore witness not only one’s religious devotion but also one’s taste and wealth.’
Dr Elizabeth L’Estrange, Department of History of Art, University of Birmingham
This manuscript leaf shows the Flight into Egypt, when Mary and Joseph fled Bethlehem just after the birth of their son, Jesus, to escape the massacre of children by King Herod. Mary is seated on a donkey, and holds her swaddled son close to her chest; Joseph leads in front, carrying their possessions over his shoulder. However, he also looks back towards his wife and son as if to reassure them, making this an intimate family group. The rocky foreground and distant towns help to convey the sense that they are fleeing. A 15th-century viewer would not only have known the story and its place in the Christian narrative but would also have been sensitive to the intimacy of this image, which reflects current interest in the humanity of Christ, his earthly family, and the suffering they endured.
Paris was the centre of manuscript illumination in the later middle ages, reaching its zenith in the early 15th century. The outstanding illuminator was the Boucicaut Master, so-called from the Book of Hours he illuminated for the Maréchal de Boucicaut (who later died in England after being taken prisoner at Agincourt). He was a leading exponent of the International Gothic style and in the vanguard in his treatment of landscape, perspective, light and colour, adding a new dimension to manuscript illumination. His workshop, which must have employed several artists, was organised as a commercial operation on a considerable scale and was highly productive.
This leaf is from a dispersed manuscript dated 1408, which included 28 miniatures in the style of the Boucicaut Master. The complete book was owned by the distinguished collector J. B. Jarman (d.1864) when it was damaged during a freak flood of his Mayfair premises in 1846, as evidenced in the damp-staining around the edges of this leaf. The text, which continues on the other side, forms part of the Vespers of the Hours of the Virgin. The borders sprout scrolling stems with clustered ivy leaves and tiny pen-work flourishes. While inferior to the full-page version in the autograph Boucicaut Hours, this Flight into Egypt has something of the master’s lavish richness in the blue and gold of the Virgin’s robe and halo and other details.
A free gallery talk will be given on Thursday 15 December at 1:15pm, in the Learning Room.
All welcome.