NATIVITY, miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated...

NATIVITY, miniature on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [probably Valenciennes and Bruges, 1480s-1490s].

A delicately painted miniature from an artist working in the circle of Simon Marmion at Valenciennes, with the borders supplied in splendid Ghent-Bruges style. The leaf comes from a Book of Hours for the use of Cambrai, whose scribe has been identified as the Dominican Johann de Bomalia, recorded in 1489 as a member of the Bruges illuminators’ guild of Guild of Saint John and Saint Luke.

124 x 92mm. 16 ruled lines. The recto text (beginning ‘[inve]niat mansionem. Qui tecum vivit et regnat…’) from the final prayer at Lauds (occasional pinprick holes, some flaking to the pigment). Mounted.

Provenance: One of a group of leaves from a dismembered Book of Hours, use of Cambrai, sold in Paris (Hôtel Drouot, 19 May 1976, lot 26) – bought by H.P. Kraus who dispersed them. Sister leaves are in Munich (Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Inv. 40051-62 and 18736-58), Frankfurt (Historisches Museum, C.85-89, 754-59 and 6439-41) and other important European and American collections, including the J. Paul Getty Museum (MS. 34).

The style is recognisably that of Simon Marmion, named in 1503 by the poet Jean Lemaire as ‘prince d’enluminure’: particularly distinctive here is the soft palette, enlivened by salmon-pink and malachite green, and the rather sweet face of the Virgin, as well as the distinctive three-sided border layout necessitated by the placement of the miniature. If not the work of Marmion himself, the illumination – described by Bodo Brinkmann as 'very close to Marmion’ – must be by an accomplished member of his atelier, while the detailed scatter borders seem to have been supplied in a Bruges workshop (for discussion of the similar manuscripts and the existence of the ‘Louthe Master’ see B. Brinkmann, ‘The Contribution of Simon Marmion to Books of Hours from Ghent and Bruges’, Margaret of York, Simon Marmion and The Visions of Tondal, ed. T. Kren, 1992, pp.181-194).