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Details
Circle of the Master of Anne of Brittany
The De Simony Book of Hours, use of Langres, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum [Paris, c.1485]
A finely illuminated Book of Hours from the circle of the Master of Anne of Brittany that maintained its function as a family chronicle through twelve generations and four centuries.
197 x 130mm. iv + 107 + iv leaves: 1-26, 37 (of 8, viii cancelled blank), 4-148, unfoliated, text complete, 19 lines, written space: 103 x 66mm, rubrics in red, one-line flourished initials, two-line initials in liquid gold on grounds of maroon, red or blue, side borders in the outer margin of all text pages including birds animals and grotesques, nine small miniatures with similar borders, 24 marginal calendar scenes in full borders, seventeen large miniatures above large initials with full borders (smudging to some calendar pages, slight wear to some miniatures and borders, a few offsets, heads of one of the boys resuscitated by St Nicholas and of St Barbara neatly excised, family records in margins of opening leaves). ?17th-century blue velvet over ?original wooden boards, decorated with couched metallic threads on and spine and on upper and lower covers adjacent to joints, two straps with metal clasps and pins (velvet worn, some threads lifted). Morocco box, spine lettered gilt.
Provenance:
(1) The book is for the Use of Langres, with saints specially revered there in the Calendar - John Abbot of Réome (28 Jan.), Didier, Bishop of Langres (23 May), Winebald (29 May), Mammas (17 August), dedication of the church of St Mammas, the Cathedral of Langres, (26 August), translation of Mammas (10 Oct.) – and the Litany – Benignus, Didier, Mammas, Gengulphus, Lupus and Clarus. Its decoration, however, shows that it was made in Paris.
(2) Gilbert de Pringle, de Pringles, Despringles, seigneur de Varanges (d.1661): notes of his marriage to Bernarde Coussin in 1622 and of the births of his children, including Jeanne in 1637, and his marriage to his second wife, Marie de Requelyne in 1632, on ff.i-iv verso and f.i at the end. Of Scottish descent settled in or near Dijon, successive generations of the family acquired considerable wealth through service in the administration of the Duchy of Burgundy. Gilbert’s father, Jean, had the family’s nobility restored in 1573 and in 1576 was procureur général in the Chambre des comptes at Dijon. Gilbert held various offices there from at least 1613, became Controller of Fortifications in 1618 and ended his career as Receiver General in 1652 (J. d’Arbaumont ed., Armorial de la Chambre des comptes de Dijon, 1881, pp.222-3).
(3) His son, Jean Baptiste de Pringle, seigneur de Loges, Secretary of the Dijon Chambre des comptes in 1653: his record of his father’s death in 1661 and his step-mother Marie de Requelyne’s in 1670, verso of first final endleaf .
(4) Presumably Jeanne de Pringles (1637-1708), heiress to her childless half-brother, Jean Baptiste, and full brother, Guillaume; she married Claude Symony (1621-1698), who presumably started the Symony records on the second final endleaf, recording their marriage in 1655 on the verso. The Symony family, descended from a Sienese mercenary who fought for the Duke of Lorraine at the battle of Nancy in 1477, had settled in Langres but royal service drew them often to Dijon and elsewhere. Claude rose in the service of the duc d’Épernon, governor of Burgundy and from 1668 was a councillor and then president in the Parlement of Metz.
(5) By descent, the family adopting the spelling Simony and becoming vicomtes and then comtes de Simony: notes by their descendants on front pastedown, f.i and in the margins of ff.ii-iv verso, 1-10v, 11v, 12v-14v, 15v-16 and 17, final four endleaves and pastedown. The de Simony notes at the front, begun at or after Claude’s death in 1698, perhaps by his son Bernard (1657-1725), give the earlier history of the family and their Italian origins and end with the 12th comte de Simony’s daughter, born in 1952, part of a final entry made after the death in 1964 of her grandfather, Pierre-Marie-Felix, comte de Simony. The family chronicle thus covers twelve generations and establishes the book’s unbroken descent through four centuries of ownership by the de Pringle-de Simony families.
(6) The Property of a Gentleman, sold at Sotheby’s, 22 June 1982, lot 93, bought by Leister.
Contents:
Calendar ff.1-12v; Gospel extracts ff.13-19v; Hours of the Virgin, use of Langres, interspersed with the Hours of the Cross and of the Holy Spirit, ff.20-58; ruled blanks ff.58v-59v; Penitential Psalms and litany ff.60-73v; Office of the Dead, use of Langres, ff.74-97; ruled blanks ff.97v-99v; Memorials: Sts John the Baptist, John the Evangelist, Anthony Abbot, Nicholas, Sebastian, Barbara, All Saints, Katherine, Mary Magdalen, ff.100-104v; Obsecro te, in the masculine, ff.105-107v.
Illumination:
The finely painted large miniatures are close to the work of the illuminator, painter and designer variously known as the Master of the Très petites heures of Anne of Brittany, Queen of France (Paris, BnF, ms nouv. acq. lat.3120), the Master of the Hunt of the Unicorn, as designer of the great tapestries in The Cloisters, New York, or the Master of the Rose or Apocalypse window of the Sainte Chapelle in Paris, which he also designed. The Calendar miniatures are in a different, less refined style. The art of the Master of Anne of Brittany was rooted in that of the Coëtivy Master - the source of the distinctive facial type with retroussé nose – itself derived from that of the Master of Dreux Budé. If these masters were three generations of the same family, they could be the painter-illuminators of Netherlandish origin active in Paris: André d’Ypres or d’Amiens, his son Colin d’Amiens and grandson Jean d’Ypres, whose death in 1508 roughly coincides with the end of the activity of the Master of Anne of Brittany. His work reached a wide audience as he designed not only for stained glass and tapestry but also for the Parisian publishers of printed books of hours. The printers followed traditions already set by manuscripts, when Paris could be called on for prestige productions from anywhere in France.
Many of the compositions in the de Simony Hours correspond closely, even in colour, to those in the Master’s name work and two related Books of Hours in Chantilly (Musée Condé mss 81 and 82). Yet the distinct style of the de Simony miniatures suggests a distinct creator, albeit one with an intimate and direct knowledge of the Master’s work. They have been attributed by Ina Nettekoven to the illuminator of a collection of theological treatises in Paris (BnF ms fr.9608), (Der Meister der Apokalypsenrose der Saint Chapelle und die Pariser Buchkunst um 1500, 2004, pp.56-7), where the Crucifixion on f.3v is an elaborate version of that in the de Simony hours and could well be by the same hand. The borders in the Treatises are inhabited by a similar variety of intriguing beasts and grotesques but lack the pleasingly varied divided grounds, some shaped as fleur de lys or banderoles.
Nicole Reynaud considered the treatises so close to the Master of Anne of Brittany that they could even be his own youthful work, while allowing for the possibility of an associate; she also pointed out similarities with the miniatures in an Hours for the Use of Chartres which share the profound knowledge of the Master’s work (BnF ms lat. 1421; F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, 1993, no 145-6, pp.267-8). Nettekoven discerns two hands in these manuscripts: the first is the Master of the Theological Treatises, also responsible for a Book of Hours for the Use of Rome with Heribert Tenschert in 1990 (Leuchtendes Mittelalter II, Katalog XXV, no 52) and an Hours for the Use of Paris in the Schøyen Collection (ms 013, formerly Sotheby´s, 2.12.1986, lot 65); the second is the Master of Charles VIII, named from an Hours owned by Charles VIII of France (private collection, Leuchtendes Mittelalter I, Katalog XXI, no 62; see I. Nettekoven, J'aime tant fort une: das Stundenbuch des Königs Charles VIII, 2016), to whom she attributes the Chartres Hours and the striking David miniature in the de Simony Hours, a composition that appears on a tiny scale in a bas de page of the Très petites heures of Anne of Brittany.
Two hands associated with the Master of Anne of Brittany can indeed be distinguished in the de Simony Hours: the Master of the Theological Treatises, with a lankier figure style, influenced by Maître François and the Master of Jacques de Besançon (?François le Berbier the Elder and Younger) as in the Visitation and the Birth of the Baptist, ff.28, 100, and the Master of Charles VIII, with stockier figures and a less refined technique, as in David and Goliath, f.60, and the small miniatures of saints. The boundary between the two, however, is made fluid by shared models and conventions of technique, like the lavish use of liquid gold to model drapery and indicate the fall of light on landscapes. Attribution is further complicated by the possible involvement of other workshop members, particularly in the Hours with Tenschert in 1990, where miniatures were also contributed by the Master of Jacques de Besançon. The Theological Treatises Master and the Master of Charles VIII also worked together on the Hours in the Schøyen Collection. Neither of these Books of Hours apparently matches the refinement and detail of the accomplished de Simony Hours, a continuously treasured example of the qualities of the workshop of the Master of Anne of Brittany, which appealed to a devout Langrois as well as to the King and Queen of France.
The subjects of the large miniatures are: St John on Patmos f.13, St Luke f.15, St Matthew f.16v, St Mark f.18v, the Annunciation f.20, the Visitation f.28, the Crucifixion f.35v, Pentecost f.36v, the Nativity f.37v, the Annunciation to the Shepherds f.42, the Adoration of the Magi f.45, the Presentation in the Temple f.48, the Flight into Egypt f.51, the Coronation of the Virgin f.55v, David and Goliath f.60, Job on the dung heap f.74, the Birth of the Baptist f.100.
The subjects of the small miniatures are: Sts John the Evangelist f.101, Anthony Abbot f.101v, Nicholas f.102, Sebastian f.102v, Barbara f.103, All Saints f.103v, Katherine f.104, Mary Magdalen f.104v, Virgin and Child f.105.
The small miniatures in the Calendar borders are of the signs of the zodiac to the side and of the occupations below: man warming himself at fireside f.1, man digging f.2, man pruning vines f.3, man holding a golden flower f.4, man a-maying on horseback f.5, man shearing a sheep f.6, man scything f.7, man harvesting with sickle f.8, man sowing f.9, man treading grapes f.10, man killing pig f.11, man putting bread in oven f.12.
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