Beschreibung:

Master of Martainville 183 (fl.1500-1520) and Jean Pichore (fl.1490-1521) Pentecost, a leaf from a Book of Hours on vellum, Paris, c.1500-10 An atmospheric Pentecost from a deluxe, large-format Book of Hours illuminated by two of the dominant figures in 16th-century Parisian illumination. 221 x 145mm. The miniature opening the Hours of the Holy Spirit in a Book of Hours, reverse with 2-line initials, line fillers, and border in right margin with foliates, flowers, and a heron or crane, 21 lines of text ruled in red ink, rubrics in blue, with concluding prayers for the Hours of the Holy Cross, beginning '[...]future. Conditur aromate complen/tur scripture [...]' and ending '[...] Si michi solacium i[n] / mortis agone.' Mounted and framed. Illumination: The illusionistic picture space presenting the figures 'close up' is often associated with Jean Bourdichon and Jean Poyer in Tours. The present miniature, however, was almost certainly illuminated in Paris. The composition and rendering of faces is evidently that of the Master of Martainville 183. It is immediately comparable to the same subject in a Book of Hours for the use of Rome attributed to the Master of Martainville 183 in Chantilly (Musée Condé, MS 72, f.48v), as well as to an attributed leaf at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge of the same subject (Marlay Cutting Fr. 13d). According to Caroline Zöhl, the renderings of the Virgin Mary and John the Baptist in the present leaf are closer in style to the enormously successful workshop of Jean Pichore (active Paris, c. 1490-1521); with further study this leaf might reveal new information on collaborations between these two groups, both producing Books of Hours in Paris in the first decades of the 16th century.