GAWAIN AND HIS COMPANIONS IN SEARCH OF LANCELOT, ILLUMINATED BY THE DUNOIS MASTER (Jean Haincelin?): a miniature on a cutting from a copy of Le livre du Lancelot du lac, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum
a cutting, c. 95 × 95mm, the reverse with part of 15 lines in gothic script, corresponding to Sommer, 1911, p. 322, lines 17–25 (‘que du sang et de la ceruelle … par la gorge et lestran’; the last lines not in the edition), the miniature depicting Gawain and his companions, led by a damsel, arriving at the place where ten soldiers are attacking a knight, who lies on the ground (Sommer, 1911, p. 323, lines 18–19); some slight surface rubbing and light creases, none significant; framed, with a clipping from the 1972 catalogue stuck to the back.
PROVENANCE? Prigent de Coëtivy (1399–1450), admiral of France: in 1444 Prigent paid ‘Hancelin’ the very large sum of more than 90 livres for the illumination of a Roman de Tristan, a Livre du Lancelot del Lac and a Roman de Guiron le Courtois (Delisle, 1900, p. 192); it is likely that the latter is the two-volume copy in Paris (BnF, MS Fr. 356–357; Avril & Reynaud, 1993, no. 7), and the Lancelot the volume from which the current cutting comes; they were produced by the same scribes and artists.The parent manuscript was apparently cut up by the 16th century and may have had more than 150 miniatures: some of the cuttings are reported to to have numbers as high as ‘152’ written on the reverse ‘in a hand which may be of the 16th century or earlier’ (Jeudwine, 1962, p. 1).The parent manuscript was certainly cut-up by the mid-19th century when 34 miniatures (including this and the following lot) were mounted in a red morocco album ‘with an unidentified, probably French, coat of arms’ (Jeudwine, p. 2), bound by Petit, Paris. Other cuttings from the same manuscript exist which were not bound into this album, including one now in Boston (Clark, 2016).JOACHIM NAPOLÉON (1856–1932), PRINCE MURAT, a member of the Bonaparte-Murat family: with his bookplate; sold from the estate of his widow, Marie (d. 1960), daughter of the Duc d’Elschingen, to:Wynne R. H. Jeudwine (1920–1984), Editor of Apollo 1956–59, and collector-dealer in drawings, prints, and books: exhibited and offered for sale individually in London in 1962, no. 21)LORD WARDINGTON: one of fourteen miniatures from the manuscript sold in our rooms, 13 December 1965, lot 171 (the present miniature as item 2); bought by Maggs (four appeared in their Bulletin 4, 1966, nos. 55–58).Sold in our rooms, 8 July 1970, lot 22; bought by T.R. Lacey.Sold at Christie’s, 21 June 1978, lot 260; bought by:Private Collection, Belgium; sold in our rooms, 8 July 2014, lot 17:Les Enluminures, exhibited in London in 2016The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1438
ILLUMINATIONSee the previous lot for a discussion of the artist.
The scene represents an event when Gawain and his companions encounter a damsel weeping loudly for a knight who was being attacked in a valley nearby; she leads Gawain and his companions there, and they find the knight fighting against ten others.
BIBLIOGRAPHYL. Delisle, ‘Les Heures de l’amiral Prigent de Coëtivy’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 61 no. 1 (1900), pp. 186–200.
H.O. Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, IV: Le livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part II (Washington, 1911).
W.R. Jeudwine, Early Fifteenth Century Miniatures, Exhibited at the Alpine Club Gallery, 22 May – 2 June, 1962 (London, 1962), no. 21 (ill.).
Maggs Bros Ltd, European Bulletin No. 4: European Miniatures, Illumination, and Drawings (London, 1966).
F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993).
R.H. Rouse and M.A. Rouse, “Illiterati et Uxorati”. Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200–1500, 2 vols (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 73–74.
G.T. Clark, in Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, ed. by J.F. Hamburger et al. (Chestnut Hill, MA, 2016), no 186.
GAWAIN AND HIS COMPANIONS IN SEARCH OF LANCELOT, ILLUMINATED BY THE DUNOIS MASTER (Jean Haincelin?): a miniature on a cutting from a copy of Le livre du Lancelot du lac, in French, illuminated manuscript on vellum
a cutting, c. 95 × 95mm, the reverse with part of 15 lines in gothic script, corresponding to Sommer, 1911, p. 322, lines 17–25 (‘que du sang et de la ceruelle … par la gorge et lestran’; the last lines not in the edition), the miniature depicting Gawain and his companions, led by a damsel, arriving at the place where ten soldiers are attacking a knight, who lies on the ground (Sommer, 1911, p. 323, lines 18–19); some slight surface rubbing and light creases, none significant; framed, with a clipping from the 1972 catalogue stuck to the back.
PROVENANCE? Prigent de Coëtivy (1399–1450), admiral of France: in 1444 Prigent paid ‘Hancelin’ the very large sum of more than 90 livres for the illumination of a Roman de Tristan, a Livre du Lancelot del Lac and a Roman de Guiron le Courtois (Delisle, 1900, p. 192); it is likely that the latter is the two-volume copy in Paris (BnF, MS Fr. 356–357; Avril & Reynaud, 1993, no. 7), and the Lancelot the volume from which the current cutting comes; they were produced by the same scribes and artists.The parent manuscript was apparently cut up by the 16th century and may have had more than 150 miniatures: some of the cuttings are reported to to have numbers as high as ‘152’ written on the reverse ‘in a hand which may be of the 16th century or earlier’ (Jeudwine, 1962, p. 1).The parent manuscript was certainly cut-up by the mid-19th century when 34 miniatures (including this and the following lot) were mounted in a red morocco album ‘with an unidentified, probably French, coat of arms’ (Jeudwine, p. 2), bound by Petit, Paris. Other cuttings from the same manuscript exist which were not bound into this album, including one now in Boston (Clark, 2016).JOACHIM NAPOLÉON (1856–1932), PRINCE MURAT, a member of the Bonaparte-Murat family: with his bookplate; sold from the estate of his widow, Marie (d. 1960), daughter of the Duc d’Elschingen, to:Wynne R. H. Jeudwine (1920–1984), Editor of Apollo 1956–59, and collector-dealer in drawings, prints, and books: exhibited and offered for sale individually in London in 1962, no. 21)LORD WARDINGTON: one of fourteen miniatures from the manuscript sold in our rooms, 13 December 1965, lot 171 (the present miniature as item 2); bought by Maggs (four appeared in their Bulletin 4, 1966, nos. 55–58).Sold in our rooms, 8 July 1970, lot 22; bought by T.R. Lacey.Sold at Christie’s, 21 June 1978, lot 260; bought by:Private Collection, Belgium; sold in our rooms, 8 July 2014, lot 17:Les Enluminures, exhibited in London in 2016The Boehlen Collection, Bern, MS 1438
ILLUMINATIONSee the previous lot for a discussion of the artist.
The scene represents an event when Gawain and his companions encounter a damsel weeping loudly for a knight who was being attacked in a valley nearby; she leads Gawain and his companions there, and they find the knight fighting against ten others.
BIBLIOGRAPHYL. Delisle, ‘Les Heures de l’amiral Prigent de Coëtivy’, Bibliothèque de l’École des chartes, 61 no. 1 (1900), pp. 186–200.
H.O. Sommer, The Vulgate Version of the Arthurian Romances, IV: Le livre de Lancelot del Lac, Part II (Washington, 1911).
W.R. Jeudwine, Early Fifteenth Century Miniatures, Exhibited at the Alpine Club Gallery, 22 May – 2 June, 1962 (London, 1962), no. 21 (ill.).
Maggs Bros Ltd, European Bulletin No. 4: European Miniatures, Illumination, and Drawings (London, 1966).
F. Avril and N. Reynaud, Les manuscrits à peintures en France, 1440–1520 (Paris, 1993).
R.H. Rouse and M.A. Rouse, “Illiterati et Uxorati”. Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200–1500, 2 vols (Turnhout, 2000), pp. 73–74.
G.T. Clark, in Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections, ed. by J.F. Hamburger et al. (Chestnut Hill, MA, 2016), no 186.
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