A beautifully illuminated Missal leaf in a refined early Gothic style cultivated in Metz during the patronage of Renaud de Bar.

c. 355 × 275 mm, the upper margin of the recto with contemporary foliation in red ink “C.lxxxix,” the lower right corner of the recto inscribed in pencil with the twentieth-century number “4181” in a Continental hand, the upper right corner of the verso inscribed in pencil by another twentieth-century Continental hand with a price code and price(?), running header in red, ruled in ink with widely spaced rulings and additionally ruled in plummet to guide the tops of the minims, written in fourteen lines per page in a Gothic textualis bookhand, one-line initials alternating in red and blue throughout, rubrics in red, ONE HISTORIATED INITIAL of four lines showing the Elevation of the Mass, painted in blue heightened with white on a diapered ground of gold and blue, the initial set within a burnished gold frame, with a bar border extending into the margins and terminating in sprays of burnished gold ivy leaves. A few words erased (fourth line from the bottom), fore-edge with a hole caused by a marker tab, partly obscured by remnants of mounting tape.

The recognizable style of Lorraine during the opening decades of the fourteenth century characterizes the illumination of this leaf. It recalls especially the art of Metz and the important patronage of Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1302–1316). Positioned between the artistic centers of Paris and the Rhineland, Metz developed a distinctive interpretation of Gothic illumination, combining the elegance of French courtly painting with the linear sophistication of Mosan traditions. This style is represented especially by a remarkable group of manuscripts produced for Renaud de Bar during the first decades of the century, including the Verdun Breviary (winter volume: London, British Library, Yates Thompson MS 8; summer volume: Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 107), the Verdun Missal revised for Metz use (Verdun, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 98), and the Metz Pontifical (first volume: Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, MS 298; second volume: Prague, National Library of the Czech Republic, MS XXIII.C.120). These manuscripts are characterized by elegant attenuated figures with small heads and refined gestures, softly modeled faces with delicate features, and long flowing draperies articulated through rhythmic linear folds. Although the present leaf was not produced by the Renaud de Bar group itself, it clearly reflects the artistic vocabulary established by this circle. The figures share the same reliance on linear modeling, with forms and draperies built up through simple penwork, strong dark outlines defining figures, and ornamental details including looping, almost drip-like pen flourishes embellishing letterforms. The use of patterned blue and gold backgrounds enriched with small fleur-de-lis motifs further reflects the luxury vocabulary of Metz illumination in the first half of the fourteenth century.

The localization of this leaf to Lorraine is further supported by an unusual textual feature preserved in the Canon of the Mass, typically one of the least variable sections of the medieval Missal. Within the prayer Te igitur, where manuscripts normally include placeholders for the names of the pope, bishop, and ruler (e.g. papa nostro N., et antistite nostro N.), the present leaf contains an erasure equivalent to approximately five or six words. Rather than the standard placeholders, this deletion likely removed the phrase “necnon et me indigno famulo tuo” (“and also me, your unworthy servant”), an uncommon addition occasionally found in eastern French manuscripts. Leroquais records fewer than ten missals containing this phrase, including examples from Troyes, Reims, Verdun, and Metz. Significantly, the Verdun example, like the present leaf, also shows the deliberate removal of these same six words, providing compelling textual evidence for a Lorraine origin.

Provenance
(1) Folio Fine Art, London, inscribed in pencil with their number “MS 4552” and offered in their Catalogue 75 (September 1970), no. 255.

(2) Bruce P. Ferrini (1949–2010), Akron, OH, inscribed in pencil with his stock number “VM8298.”

(3) Acquired from Bruce Ferrini via Les Enluminures in February 1988.

(4) Robert McCarthy, London, MS BM 1172.

LITERATURE
Published: Folio Fine Art Ltd, Catalogue 75 (September 1970), no. 255; Peter Kidd, The McCarthy Collection, Vol. 3, French Miniatures, London, 2021, p. 278, no. 78; Related literature: Victor Leroquais, Les sacramentaires et les missels manuscrits des bibliothèques publiques de France, 4 vols., Paris, 1924, I, p. 231; II, pp. 7, 18, 258; François Avril, “L’enluminure en Lorraine au XIVe siècle,” in Écriture et enluminure en Lorraine au Moyen Âge, Nancy, 1984, pp. 121–128. Claudia Marchitiello Mark, “Manuscript Illumination in Metz in the Fourteenth Century: Books of Hours, Workshops, and Personal Devotion,” PhD dissertation, Princeton University, 1990; Alison Stones, Gothic Manuscripts, 1260–1320, Part Two, A Survey of Gothic Manuscripts Illuminated in France, 2 vols., London, 2014, II, no. IV-16a, pp. 78–82; Kay Davenport, The Bar Books: Manuscripts Illuminated for Renaud de Bar, Bishop of Metz (1303-1316), Turnhout, 2017.

We are grateful to Peter Kidd for permission to quote from his catalogue for this entry, and we thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale.

The Robert McCarthy Collection.