A beautiful example of the artistry of Maître François, one of the most influential manuscript illuminators of the fifteenth century.
 
161 × 234 mm. Single bifolium, ruled in red ink for a single column of fifteen lines (justification: 90 × 55 mm), written in a Gothic bookhand in brown ink, rubrics in red, line-fillers in rose and blue with delicate white penwork and gold caps, one- and two-line initials in burnished gold on rose and blue grounds, ornamented with white filigree, text supported by horizontal gold bars and framed by elaborate panel borders of hairline vines with gold ivy leaves, acanthus sprays, colored flowers, and fruit, TWO PAINTED MINIATURES of seven lines each, one depicting Saint John the Baptist within a gold frame, the other showing Saint Michael within a gold architectural surround. Minor soiling to lower margins, pigments and gold remain vibrant and well preserved. The bifolium is housed in an elegant double-sided gilt frame with a repeating scallop-shell motif in raised relief, richly finished in gold leaf.

This finely illuminated bifolium from the Suffrages of a Book of Hours with miniatures on the recto and the verso originates from the circle of Maître François (François Le Barbier), one of the most prolific and stylistically influential illuminators active in Paris during the third quarter of the fifteenth century. Thanks to documentary research by Mathieu Deldicque, Maître François is now generally accepted as identifiable with François Barbier père, (for him and for his son, Jacques de Besançon, see Deldicque 2014); an oeuvre of around fifty manuscripts has been reconstructed through comparison to his single documented work from 1475: a large-format, two-volume La Cité de Dieu, Raoul de Presles’ vernacular translation of St. Augustine (Paris, Bib. Sainte-Genevieve, MS 246). Of these, around thirty are Books of Hours: the master’s prolific workshop produced a considerable number for prestigious patrons between 1460 and 1490 and the commercial success of his workshop in the thriving market in Paris is evident in the number of followers reproducing his compositions. The present leaf is probably by one of his close collaborators.


Hallmarks of Maître François’s style are the clear tones, the use of gold highlighting, the tiny brush strokes with stippling and cross hatching, the touches of gold on rounded trees, the darker fleshtones of indivdualised male faces (especially John), and the delicate figures gently posed in interior and exterior settings.  Compare, for example, one of his signature manuscripts, the Wharncliffe Hours (Melbourne, National Gallery of Victoria, MS 1072-3). The present leaf has parallels to a pair of leaves depicting Saints Matthew and Mark (Bonhams London, 22 June 2021, lot 9), although further research is needed to verify whether they come from the same parent manuscript. 
 
Provenance
(1) Private collection, USA.
 
Sister leaves
Presently no sister leaves have been identified.

LITERATURE
Unpublished; for the Maître François see: Charles Sterling, “François Le Barbier père et fils,” in Mélanges offerts à René Huyghe, Paris, 1964, pp. 331–36; François Avril and Nicole Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520, Paris, 1993, pp. 100–109; Mathieu Deldicque, “L’enluminure à Paris à la fin du XVe siècle: Maître François, le Maître de Jacques de Besançon et Jacques de Besançon identifiés?” Revue de l’art 183 (2014), pp. 9–18.

We thank Senior Consultant Sandra Hindman and Peter Bovenmyer for their assistance in preparing this sale and Elliot Adam for consultation on this entry.