MASTER OF THE CUISSOTTE HOURS (Champagne, likely Reims, active c. 1460-80)
Book of Hours (fragment), in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [France, Reims, c. 1460]

By the distinctive Master of the Cuissotte Hours, an important illuminator active in Champagne whose oeuvre continues to be refined and expanded through ongoing scholarship.

rebound fragment, ii (paper) + 26 + x (paper) leaves, foliated intermittently, marginally cropped [collation: single leaves and bifolia gathered into modern guard binding ], ruled in brown ink in single column of thirteen lines (justification: 44 mm × 32 mm), written in a gothic textualis script, rubrics in red, capitals of one and two lines in gold on alternating red and blue ground with penwork embellishments and infill, accompanied by partial strewn borders with naturalistic sprigs, seed pods, and liquid gold, FIVE HALF-PAGE MINIATURES, arch-topped enclosed within a compartmentalized bar frame, four in blue, rose, and gold with geometric penwork decoration, one in in red and blue acanthus tendrils on gold grounds, all with blue acanthus corner extensions, borders of dense strewn-flower type composed of gold ivy leaves, seed pods and polychrome blossoms connected by fine penwork tendrils. Bound by Denis Gouey in dark blue velour over pasteboard, gently beveled at edges, cover set with central gilt oval boss framed by four smaller domed studs in quincunx arrangement with additional bosses at corners, spine with raised bands, fore-edge fitted with gilt metal clasp of openwork design, minor stains and discoloration to margins and gutter of some leaves, minor ink corrosion present on ff. 5, 9, 13, 17, else in good condition. Dimensions 82 mm × 62 mm.

Provenance
(1) Written and illuminated for a client in or around Reims, with antiphons consistent with the Use of Reims.

(2) Modern pencil foliation on some leaves indicates that the parent manuscript was intact and broken up sometime in the twentieth century.

(3) Van Loock, Belgium. Purchased as individual leaves, 4 July, 2000.

(4) Collection of Dr. Scott Schwartz, New York, his bookplate and catalog number “MS 62” on front pastedown.

Text
The text for each leaf is as follows: ff. 1-2 (bifolium), Psalm 130–132; f. 3 (foliated “18”), Supplications (beginning imperfectly: “et laudum praeconia”); ff. 4–5 (bifolium, foliated “22”), explicit Lauds and incipit Matins (Office of the Virgin); f. 6 (foliated “49”), Psalm 121; f. 7 (foliated “62”) Psalm 129; f. 8 (foliated “69”), Antiphons and Orations (“Mentes nostras, quaesumus, Domine”); f. 9, incipit Prime (Hours of the Virgin); f. 10, Psalm 116; f. 11, Psalm 12 and 42; f. 12, Ava Maria Stella; f. 13, incipit Sext (Hours of the Virgin); 14v, Pslam 42 and Psalm 128; f. 15, Psalm 50; f. 16, Psalm 130; f. 17, explicit None and incipit Vespers (Hours of the Virgin); f. 18, Psalm 128; f. 19 Compline texts (Hours of the Virgin); f. 20, incipit Office of the Dead; f. 20, Psalm 130; f. 21 (foliated “10”), Pslam 94; f. 22 (foliated “100”), Psalm 31; f.23, Ava Maria Stella; ff. 24–25 (folated “78”), lesson for a confessor saint (unnamed).

Illumination Previously known as the “Master of Walters 269,” this anonymous illuminator has more recently been reidentified as the “Master of the Cuissotte Hours,” following Maxence Hermant’s recognition of a Book of Hours made for Marguerite Cuissotte, a woman belonging to a prominent family from nearby Châlons-en-Champagne (Reims, Bibliothèque Municipale, MS 2852). The corpus currently attributed to this artist comprises eight manuscripts and several related fragments, including the present group, which belongs to the master’s mature phase.

Many of the compositional designs employed in the present example, such as the Last Judgment, were adapted from the eponymous manuscript and simplified to accommodate the exceptionally small scale of the commission (Hermant 2024, 366). Aesthetically, the fragment also draws from the Cuissotte Hours, especially in its tension between flattened, ornamental surface design and increasingly naturalistic spatial and figural modeling. This interplay is particularly evident in scenes such as the Adoration of the Magi, where volumetric figures are set against richly patterned vine-scroll grounds, and the Flight into Egypt, in which landscape elements are compressed toward the picture plane by dense ornament and broad fields of color. Such effects are emblematic of the workshop’s highly idiosyncratic visual language, which synthesizes local traditions of Reims illumination, such as the earlier Cauchon group, with broader stylistic currents, including Parisian manuscript production and the pictorial innovations of Konrad Witz.

It has been proposed that the Master of the Cuissotte Hours received his training in Paris and carried with him to Reims an awareness of the diverse stylistic idioms cultivated within that market (Hermant 2024, 363). He was active in Reims circa 1450–1465, with a discernible progression toward greater naturalism and more sophisticated figural modeling in later works, as witnessed here, as well as the contemporary Cuissotte Hours itself and the illuminated Aiguillon d’amour divin (Christie’s, 9 April 2013, lot 1; dated 1461). The master’s production underscores the extent to which regional workshops were embedded within dynamic networks of artistic exchange linking Reims with centers such as Poitiers, the Franche-Comté, and the southern Netherlands, connections likely facilitated, at least in part, by the movements and patronage of figures such as the Jouvenel des Ursins family (Clark 2014). The present fragment thus preserves a compelling example of a highly distinctive yet influential regional mode, attesting to the vitality of manuscript illumination beyond Paris and to the wide circulation of artistic ideas in fifteenth-century France.

The subjects of the five miniatures are as follows: f. 4, The Visitation (beginning Matins); f. 9, Nativity (beginning Prime); f. 12, Adoration of the Magi (beginning Sext); 16v, Flight to Egypt (beginning Vespers); f. 19, Last Judgement (beginning the Office of the Dead).

LITERATURE
Published: François Avril, Maxence Hermant, and Françoise Bibolet, Très riches heures de Champagne: L’enluminure en Champagne à la fin du Moyen Âge, Paris, 2007, pp. 116–19, no. 17; Gregory Clark, “Walters 269 and Manuscript Illumination in Rheims in the Second Third of the Fifteenth Century,” Journal of the Walters Art Museum 72 (2014), pp. 23–41; Maxence Herman, Arts et artistes en Champagne du Nord: Entre Moyen Age et Renaissance, Rennes, 2024, pp. 362–69 (see especially p. 363); Related literature: Lilian M. C. Randall, Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts in the Walters Art Gallery, vol. II: France, 1420–1540, Baltimore, 1992, 139–44, no. 129; 593, figs. 231–32; Roger S. Wieck, Time Sanctified: The Book of Hours in Medieval Art and Life, New York, 2001, 118, 188–89, no. 41, fig. 98; Maxence Hermant, “L’enluminure à Reims à la fin du Moyen Age,” La Vie en Champagne, 56 (October–December 2008), pp. 4–11; Mathieu Deldicque, Maxence Hermant, Sophie Lagabrielle and Séverine Lepape, eds., Les arts en France sous Charles VII (1422–1461), Paris, 2024; Maxence Hermant, “La Champagne,” in Peindre en France : Trente ans de recherche sur les manuscrits à peintures (1440–1520), ed. Frédéric Elsig, Samuel Gras, and Dominique Vanwijnsberghe, Milan, 2025.
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We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale and Gregory Clark for consultation on this entry.

Collection of Dr. Scott Schwarz

This lot is located in Chicago.

MASTER OF THE CUISSOTTE HOURS (Champagne, likely Reims, active c. 1460-80) Book of Hours (fragment), in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [France, Reims, c. 1460]

MASTER OF THE CUISSOTTE HOURS (Champagne, likely Reims, active c. 1460-80)
Book of Hours (fragment), in Latin, illuminated manuscript on parchment, [France, Reims, c. 1460]