 |
 |
 |
 |
|
 |
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
|
 |
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
King David in Prayer
Followers of the Fastolf Master
Hours of Jean Frigard, for Rouen use, France, Normandy (Rouen?), c. 1440 (Private Collection, f. 73). |
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
David and Goliath
Jean Fouquet or a close follower
“Veauce” Hours for Poitiers and Paris use, France, Tours, c. 1480, or just before (Les Enluminures, f. 117v). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
David and Bathsheba
Jean Colombe
Hours of Jacques Laroche for Rome use, France, Bourges, c. 1490-1500 (Private Collection, f. 85). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
David and Uriah
Jean Poyer
Astor-Aubéry de Frawenberg Hours for Toul use, France, likely Paris, c. 1500-1520 (Private Collection, f. 92r). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Last Judgment
Hours, for Geert Grote use, The Netherlands, Utrecht, c. 1430 (Les Enluminures, f. 135v). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Lust
Robinet Testard
Hours for Rome use, France, Poitiers, c. 1475 (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1001, f. 98r). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
David and Goliath Jousting
Spanish Forger
Hours for Tournai use, Low Countries, Tournai, c. 1450; France, likely Paris, c. 1890 (Private Collection, f. 12). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 |
|
Corpus Christi Procession
Giulio Clovio
Farnese Hours for Rome use, Italy, Rome, dated 1546, for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.69, ff. 72v-73r). |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
King David in Prayer
Followers of the Fastolf Master |
|
|
The usual subject for the miniature marking the Penitential Psalms is the elderly David kneeling in prayer. Having committed adultery with Bathsheba and compounded this sin with murder by sending her husband Uriah to be killed in battle, David was chastised by the prophet Nathan and reprimanded by God. As seen here, David is usually shown isolated, alone in the landscape to which he withdrew in his penance. Often, he is in a kind of valley or trench, a reference to the cave to which he retired or, possibly, to the opening line of the sixth Penitential Psalm (129), “Out of the depths have I cried unto thee.”
The illuminators of this Horae might have been trained by or worked under the Fastolf Master (named after a manuscript he illuminated for Sir John Fastolf in Oxford (Bodl. Library, MS Laud, misc. 570). The manuscript is testimony to the vibrant industry that flowered in Rouen during the English occupation and thereafter.
Hours of Jean Frigard, for Rouen use, France, Normandy (Rouen?), c. 1440 (Private Collection, f. 73).
|
|
 |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
David and Bathsheba
Jean Colombe |
|
|
Surely it is a sign of Renaissance times that the Penitential Psalms in Books of Hours of the late fifteenth and sixteenth centuries are marked not by pictures of David, the penitent sinner, but with the source of sin itself. Rising from an afternoon nap, King David looked out from his place and espied the beautiful Bathsheba at her bath. He lured her inside and committed adultery. Images in these Horae seem to offer less an admonition against sin than an occasion for it. In this miniature Bathsheba coyly raises her skirts while dangling her legs in water that flows from a towering Gothic fountain. David approaches through a break in the fence, having emerged from a long arbor; behind him rise the towers of the city of Jerusalem in the guise of the castle of Mehun-sur-Yevre built for the Duke of Berry.
By Jean Colombe, who was active from c. 1465 to 1493 and headed a large workshop in Bourges that continued under his son Philibert and grandson Francois until 1512, this Horae exhibits many characteristics of Colombe’s style and is close to the Hours of Guyot Le Peley painted by him in the early 1480s (now Troyes, Bibl. mun.).
Hours of Jacques Laroche for Rome use, France, Bourges, c. 1490-1500 (Private Collection, f. 85).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
David and Uriah
Jean Poyer |
|
|
This uncommon illustration of David and Uriah prefaces the first of the Seven Penitential Psalms (Ps. 6), “Oh Lord rebuke me not in thine anger.” Uriah the Hittite warrior and Bathsheba’s husband stands before David who hands him a letter addressed to Joab. With this letter, David betrays Uriah, ordering Joab to send him to the front line of battle, where he is killed, leaving David free to marry Bathsheba, with whom he has already committed adultery. David’s sinful acts bring God’s wrath on the kingdom.
From a lavish and unusual Book of Hours, made for a nobleman in Toul, perhaps someone from the Aubéry de Frawenberg family of Lorraine, this Horae contains miniatures by two artists. David and Uriah is close to the style of Jean Poyer (fl. 1483-97), who worked for the royal court.
Astor-Aubéry de Frawenberg Hours for Toul use, France, likely Paris, c. 1500-1520 (Private Collection, f. 92r).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
Last Judgment
|
|
|
The great accounting of one’s life will be the Last Judgment, when good deeds will be weighed against sins. An image of Judgment Day thus provided a continual reminder of this forthcoming reckoning, and an inducement, in particular, to praying the Penitential Psalms as a means of warding off temptation. This subject, universally preferred for these Psalms in thirteenth- and fourteenth-century Horae, fell out of favor in much of Europe by the fifteenth, when images of David gained ground. The Last Judgment remained prevalent, however, in Dutch and Flemish Books of Hours.
Christ sits as judge upon a rainbow, the earth his footstool. On either side is the Virgin and John the Baptist; the latter two act as intercessors for the dead resurrecting below. This is an early example of Dutch illumination, certainly from Utrecht and related to the Masters of Zweder van Culemborg and the Masters of the First History Bible.
Hours, for Geert Grote use, The Netherlands, Utrecht, c. 1430 (Les Enluminures, f. 135v).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
Lust
Robinet Testard |
|
|
The connection between the Seven Penitential Psalms and the Seven Deadly Sins is made quite clear in a most unusual series of miniatures in this Book of Hours. Each Psalm is illustrated by a personification of the sin the Psalm was meant to counter. Pride, mounted on a lion, admires himself in a mirror; Envy rides a camel while holding a thieving magpie, and so forth. Reproduced here a foppishly clad Lust mounts a goat whose horn he suggestively fingers; he gazes lovingly at a bird, probably a nightingale, which was thought to encourage illicit desire. Each personification is amplified by a bas-de-page; here the demon Asmodeus exhorts men and women to commit sins of the flesh.
Robinet Testard's amazingly long career began in the early 1470s in Poitiers. In 1484 he was valet de chambre at the Cognac court of Charles de Valois, comte d'Angoulême; then he continued in the employ of the widow, Louise of Savoy. Testard went on to work for Louise’s son, who became King François I. The final mention of Testard is in 1531 when François settles the accounts of the dead artist.
Hours for Rome use, France, Poitiers, c. 1475 (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.1001, f. 98r).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
David and Goliath Jousting
Spanish Forger |
|
|
The beginning of the Seven Penitential Psalms in this Book of Hours revamped by the prolific Spanish Forger has an unprecedented illustration, a jousting match between David and the giant Goliath. Responding to perceptions of the Middle Ages current in the nineteenth century, the Spanish Forger has transformed David’s feat into a theatrical display of chivalric life.
The Spanish Forger’s dependence for his sources on editions by Paul Lacroix on medieval art, costumes, and manners published in Paris help fix the place of his activity, which is confirmed by the fact that remnants of old Parisian newspapers have been found inside the frames of his single leaves and cuttings. Whole manuscripts by him are rare, however, and only a few such refurbished Horae are known.
Hours for Tournai use, Low Countries, Tournai, c. 1450; France, likely Paris, c. 1890 (Private Collection, f. 12).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
| 6. |
Penitential Psalms and Litany |
|
|
|
Corpus Christi Procession
Giulio Clovio |
|
|
Litanies in Books of Hours are hardly ever illustrated. This is a glorious exception. No better description of these double pages has been written than Giorgio Vasari's in the second edition (1568) of his Lives of the Painters: “… where in the margin above is a Heaven full of Angels around the most holy Trinity, and the Apostles and the other Saints one by one, and on the other side the Heaven continues with Our Lady and the Virgin Saints. In the margin below he has then depicted with the minutest figures the procession that Rome enacts for the feast of Corpus Christi, thronged with officers with torches, Bishops, and Cardinals, and the most holy Sacrament carried by the Pope, with the rest of his Court and the guard of Lances, and finally the Castello Sant' Angelo firing cannons: all such as to cause every acutest wit to marvel and be amazed.”
Made for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese, this Horae is the most famous manuscript of the Italian High Renaissance. The biographier of artists, Vasari, who tells us that Giulio Clovio (1498-1578) labored nine years on it, described all its miniatures. Crowning Clovio for his achievement, he called him “a new, if smaller, Michelangelo.”
Farnese Hours for Rome use, Italy, Rome, dated 1546, for Cardinal Alessandro Farnese (New York, The Pierpont Morgan Library, MS M.69, ff. 72v-73r).
|
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
| |
|
| |
|
|
|
