CLAUDE RUFFIN (Paris, 1554-c. 1636)
Prayerbook, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, 1634]

Newly identified work by the ecclesiastic-illuminator Claude Ruffin from the celebrated Mortimer Schiff Collection.

i (paper) + 74 + v (paper) leaves, foliated in a modern hand in pencil 3–74, [collation: i⁴+², ii–xii⁴, xiii², xiv–xvi⁴, xvii⁶], ruled in graphite, the text area enclosed within a double red fillet border, written in a single column of twelve lines (justification: 95 mm × 52 mm) in a neat littera antiqua script, with rubrics in red in a formal cursive hand, capitals of one, two, and four lines in burnished gold on stippled grounds embellished with acanthus, florals, fruit, and scrolling vinework, ONE HISTORIATED INITIAL of five lines on a deep blue ground with delicate gold foliate scrollwork on a red field enriched with gold filigree, preceded on the facing folio by an incipit in chrysography, ONE FULL-PAGE MONOGRAM “IHS” within a gold border framing fruit, foliage, and an amphora, ONE FULL-PAGE HERALDIC DEVICE, encircled by a laurel wreath and surmounted by a scroll, all within a burnished gold frame, ONE FULL-PAGE MINIATURE of the Virgin Lactans, within a gold frame. Bound in eighteenth-century dark red polished calf, the covers gilt-tooled with a double fillet border enclosing a central panel with fleur-de-lys corner tools, spine with raised bands forming compartments, each tooled in gilt with fleur-de-lys stamps within a dense ornamental frame, housed in a spine-form slipcase inscribed in gilt “LIVRES / DE PRIERES / MANUSCRIT / ECRIT PAR / RUFFIN / 1634,” textblock slightly detached from the spine, with minor thumbing to the lower margins, otherwise in good condition. Dimensions 126 mm × 82 mm.

Provenance
(1) Written and illuminated by Claude Ruffin (1554–c. 1636), identified in a colophon on f. 71v and again in an inscription on f. 64v reading: “Claude Ruffin à escript et enluminé ce petit livre de devotion, 1634.” Executed for an unidentified patron whose heraldic device appears on the facing folio: azure, a fess or between in chief two birds affrontés and in base a lamb passant or, encircled by a laurel wreath and accompanied by the motto “sans nul fraude” (Here, there is no deceit [fraud]).

(2) Early ownership inscription on front flyleaf, reading faintly: “...de l’eglise de paris…”.

(3) Mortimer L. Shiff (1877–1931), his ex libris on front pastedown. Shiff was a New York banker, philanthropist, and collector of European art and rare books, whose patronage notably enriched major American institutional collections. His important collection was dispersed largely at Sotheby’s, London, in 1938.

Text
ff. 2–7v, Communion Prayers; ff. 8–10, Hymn to the Holy Spirit; ff. 11–18, Litanies of the Holy Name of Jesus; ff. 19–24, Litanies of the Virgin; ff. 25–33, Antiphons; ff. 33–48v, Devout Prayer for All Christians and Catholics; ff. 49–56, Thanksgiving after Mass, with antiphons; ff. 56v–61, Prayers following Mass; ff. 61–65v, Prayers for the King; f. 66, blank; ff. 67–69, Libera me, Domine, de morte aeterna (paraphrase); ff. 70–71, blank; ff. 71v–72, colophon and heraldic device; ff. 73–74, blank.

Illumination
This distinctive prayerbook was written and illuminated by Claude Ruffin (1554–c. 1636?) in 1634, when the artist was approximately eighty years old. Despite his advanced years, Ruffin remained remarkably active, completing in the same year a large Missel with eight miniatures (now Paris, Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, MS 202), and, two years later, in 1636, a Preparatio ad missam (Paris, Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, MS 2724). Approximately eight manuscripts are currently attributed to Ruffin; the present prayerbook, newly identified, appears to constitute a ninth addition to his known oeuvre. Ruffin does not seem to have received formal artistic training. His earliest dated works are executed in a somewhat naïve, archaizing manner, and he also adorned printed devotional works (see Selbach 2020, 13–14). Over the following decades, his style evolved into a more assured and refined idiom. His later production, to which the present manuscript belongs, represents the most accomplished phase of his activity, characterized by historiated initials and borders rendered in gouache and gold with multiple fillets, and occasionally incorporating full- or half-page painted compositions, as seen here. He sometimes signed with his anagram “Icy nul fraude,” as occurs in the present manuscript.

Ruffin’s career was fundamentally ecclesiastical, and his artistic activity appears to have developed alongside, and perhaps somewhat later than, his clerical vocation. Autobiographical details recorded in the Arsenal Missal note that he had served the Church of Paris for seventy-two years by the age of eighty, implying that he entered its service in 1562 at the age of eight, likely as a choirboy. By 1575, he is documented as the most senior among the choirboys at Notre-Dame de Paris. In 1576, his voice attracted the attention of the Cardinal of Guise, who sought to attach him to his chapel; the cathedral chapter refused, and a subsequent attempt to abduct him failed. Ruffin later entered the priesthood, and his distinguished service as a cantor of Notre-Dame secured for him, before 1610, a canonry in the chapter of Saint-Aignan. He is last recorded in 1636 as a beneficiary of Notre-Dame de Paris. Nothing further is known of him thereafter.

The present manuscript enriches the known corpus of Ruffin’s work, complementing examples preserved in major institutional collections, including the Bibliothèque Mazarine, the Bibliothèque Sainte-Geneviève, and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal, and illuminates more broadly the sustained role of manuscript illumination in seventeenth-century Paris.

The subjects of the two miniatures and historiated initial are: f. 3, Christ in an initial ‘O’ (beginning the Lord’s Prayer); f. 10v, IHS monogram in chrisography with vase, florals, and fruit motifs; f. 18v, Virgin Lactans with halo surrounded by clouds.

LITERATURE
Unpublished; Related literature: Roger Portalis, “Nicolas Jarry et la calligraphie au XVIIe siècle,” Bulletin du Bibliophile (1896/1897), p. 133; Isabelle Handy, Musiciens au temps des derniers Valois (1547–1589), Paris, 2008; Max Schmitz, “Le missel de Noyon dit ‘missel d’Ourscamp’ des Archives et Bibliothèque de la Cathédrale de Tournai (B.C.T., manuscrit A14B): Examen codicologique, contenu et propriétaires successifs,” Archives et Manuscrits Précieux Tournaisiens 2 (2008), pp. 37–54; Vanessa Selbach, “Charles de Mallery: Un graveur flamand au tournant des XVIe–XVIIe siècles,” Nouvelles de l’Estampe 263 (2020), pp. 13–21 (esp. pp. 13–14).

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance with this sale.

This lot is located in Chicago.

CLAUDE RUFFIN (Paris, 1554-c. 1636) Prayerbook, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, 1634]

CLAUDE RUFFIN (Paris, 1554-c. 1636)
Prayerbook, in Latin and French, illuminated manuscript on parchment [France, Paris, 1634]