This leaf is from the intriguing transitional period when Books of Hours began to be printed from movable type. To mimic the appearance of manuscript works, they were often, as this leaf is, printed on vellum, and were decorated with wood and metal cut illustrations, occasionally exactingly coloured.
Recto: This miniature of The Education of the Virgin is a fine example of a woodcut that has been hand coloured after printing. The colouring is particularly fine, not the rough daubing of a cheap retail copy but the careful work of a specialist colourist employed by the Vostre workshop for premium copies.
The woodcut depicts Mary as a young girl with long golden hair and wearing a simple green gown. Saint Anne, her mother, is shown as an older, matronly figure wearing a traditional medieval wimple and a red mantle, signifying her status and dignity. She sits on an elevated, high-backed wooden throne or bench, symbolising her authority as a matriarch and teacher. The borders include metal cuts of acanthus leaves, hybrid beasts, drolleries, wild men, a monkey playing a fife and drum and putti climbing vines. In a medieval context, these chaotic, untamed figures in the margins served as a directive to the devout reader to find the divine order and holiness presented in the text and miniature and not be drawn into the worldly, probably sinful, distractions lurking in the margins.
The coloured line filler, pilcrows and the two-line decorated initial 'D' were added by hand after the printing.
Content: The text is printed in a gothic typeface in Latin. The gold and blue initial 'D' begins the prayer: Deus qui beate anne tantam gratiam donare dignatus es ut beatissimam matrem tua[m] in suo gloriosissimo utero portare meruit: da nobis per intercessionem matris et filie tue propiciationis abundantiam…
(O God, who deigned to grant such grace to blessed Anne that she merited to bear your most blessed mother in her most glorious womb: grant to us, through the intercession of this mother and your daughter, an abundance of your loving-kindness…)
Verso: The four vertical border metal cuts form a narrative sequence, illustrating different estates of humanity (king, pope, clergy, people) all united in devotion to the Virgin.
The large bottom border image shows a substantial crowd of figures, clearly laypeople at prayer, the bourgeois and clerical faithful who were the primary market for Books of Hours. Their dress is late 15th century French bourgeois costume, the houppelandes and simple robes of prosperous Parisian townspeople. This is a devotional mirror; the purchaser of the book sees themselves and their social peers depicted in prayer, reinforcing the book's role as a personal devotional tool.
Condition: Very good condition, with just the expected edge browning. The miniature retains vibrant colour and bright gold. The leaf is unconditionally guaranteed genuine.
The cockling and the curve of slight distortion along the right margin of the leaf is to do with vellum being an organic, reactive material. In effect it behaves like a sponge, absorbing and releasing moisture from the air. The outer edges of a book's pages are the most exposed to the atmosphere. When the re lative humidity changes, the outer margins absorb moisture faster than the inner spine (gutter) of the book leading to the edges expanding and contracting at a different rate than the rest of the page. Over centuries of seasonal humidity shifts, it can cause a contraction of the outer margins, making the vellum wavy and rippled.
Size: approx. 170x105 mm.
Notes: The best-known and most prolific partnership in Parisian Book of Hours production was that of Philippe Pigouchet as printer and artist, and Simon Vostre as bookseller. The division of roles was precise and complementary: Pigouchet provided the technical and artistic expertise — the press, the type, the wood and metal cut designs, while Vostre provided the capital, the commercial network, and the shop on the rue Neuve Notre-Dame from which the books were sold à l'enseigne sainct Jehan l'evangeliste — (at the sign of Saint John the Evangelist.)
Item No: PSA218
