15th-century illumination at its peak at auction

A French collector is now the proud owner of this exceptional work, whose illuminations are reminiscent of the Duc de Berry’s Belles Heures.

After a long tussle between three telephones, two English-speaking and one French, it was the latter who finally won this Book of Hours for the use of Paris, executed around 1420, for €768,800, up from a high estimate of €100 ,000 (studied in Gazette no. 38). The quality of the 244-leaf illuminated manuscript on vellum, with no fewer than 28 large illuminations and 24 vignettes in the calendar, as well as borders, is a factor in this remarkable score, with a profusion of astonishingly fresh colors and a great deal of gold sprinkled throughout. This highly refined work is said to be the fruit of a workshop led by three different artists, as a detailed analysis of all the elements reveals. These masters were perfectly familiar with the art of the Limbourg brothers, authors of the master illuminations of the time, and in particular of the stylistically very similar Belles Heures of the Duc de Berry (Jean I, 1340-1416), preserved in the Cloisters of the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Given the extreme care taken in its production, our sacred collection was undoubtedly destined for a prestigious patron, who may well have been a certain Jacques de Brézé (circa 1440-1494), Grand Seneschal of Normandy related to the royal family, having married Charles VII ‘s daughter , Charlotte de Valois. Connoisseurs were consoled by a panel depicting Christ with a Column and a Donor, by a follower of the Master of the Redención or Master of Sopetrán (Castile, circa 1470), which fetched €79 ,980 . This work (39 x 28.4 cm), which far exceeded its high estimate of €20,000, should be seen in the context of the Hispano-Flemish trend that permeated Castilian art in the late15th century (see Gazette no. 39).