Saint Catherine (recto)
Text leaf (recto)
Master of Jean Charpentier (active in France, Tours, second half of the 15th century)
Tempera, ink and gold on vellum.
Framed individually: 45.5 x 36 cm (saint Catherine); 39.5 x 30 cm (text leaf).
Further images
Our refined illuminated leaves are extracted from the so-called Bréviaire de Saint-Julien de Tours, from which several other leaves are known. They are now preserved in private collections or public institutions. Dated circa 1470-1475, this breviary could be the earliest known manuscript painted by the Master of Jean Charpentier (active in France, Tours, circa 1470-1490), when his style is particularly sophisticated and close to the famous Jean Fouquet. The Saint Catherine, painted in camaïeu d'or, is extremely reminiscent of the art the Jean Fouquet and shows great delicacy. We are happy to have been able to bring the text leaf, which was previously unknown, back with one of its sister leaf.
Parent fragments and sister leaves:
Calendar and temporal (Lund, Universitetsbiblioteket, Med. Hand. 38).
Psalter (Örebro, Brevens bruk, private collection).
Meeting at the Golden Gate (Williamstown, Williams College Museum, 79.10).
Christ resurrected (Keio, Keio University, Matsuda collection, ms. 130).
Annunciation (London, Sotheby's, June 6, 2000, lot 20).
Presentation to the Temple (London, Sotheby's, June 10, 1989, lot 12).
Provenance
Part of the so-called Bréviaire de Saint-Julien de Tours, made in Tours (France) around 1470-1475 by the Master of Jean Charpentier for the abbey of Saint-Julien de Tours, where the manuscript is preserved until the 17th century.
Tours or Angers (France), maybe taken by Christophe Gerault (? his name is inscribed in the psalter, fol. 40) in the 17th century.
Dismembered by the end of the 18th century of the beginning of the 19th century, maybe in Sweden, where the baron Carl Göran Bonde (1757-1840) keeps the psalter and where the mathematician Christian Gissel Berlin (1800-1863) holds the calendar and the temporal, bounded together. Our two leaves can be traced back as follow:
Saint Catherine: London, Christie's, June 2, 1999, lot 27; London, Christie's, December 8, 2015, lot 28; London, Christie's December 15, 2021, lot 25 (as "follower of Jean Fouquet"); Switzerland, private collection.
Text leaf: USA, private collection.
Literature
Published in:
[source] Catalogue des manuscrits de Saint-Julien de Tours. Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. nouv. acq. lat. 137, fol. 2v, n° 11.
S. Gras, La vallée de la Loire à l'époque de Jean Fouquet : la carrière de trois enlumineurs actifs entre 1460 et 1480, PhD thesis, dir. A.-M. Legaré, University de Lille, 2016, vol. I, p. 210, note 505 ; vol. III, p. 155.
E. Adam, Le camaïeu d'or dans l'enluminure en France au XVe siècle. Une technique de réduction du coloris, Master thesis, dir. Ph. Lorentz, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, 2016, vol. I, p. 160, note 574.
C. Favre, "Remarques sur le bréviaire découpé de Saint-Julien de Tours", in Peindre à Angers et Tours aux XVe-XVIe siècles, dir. F. Elsig, Silvana Editoriale, Cinisello Balsamo, 2022, p. 117-121.