The Agency of Art Objects in Northern Europe, 1380–1520

III. ANIMATED THINGS: MANIPULATION AND HANDLING

III.1. Precious small objects

III.1.1. Small books

Hidden in the reserved collections of libraries and museums, and displayed only occasionally in exhibitions, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century manuscripts are known to us mostly through their reproductions. We rarely grasp the actual dimensions of these objects, provided in small font in catalogue entries, in millimetres or centimetres that do not correspond with our imagination and experience of scale. We do not distinguish between their tiny and huge formats, as we are accustomed to the standardised sizes of modern and contemporary books. But, indeed, the formats of old folios and volumes are dramatically different from those that we handle today.

Huge, large or medium sizes of c. 40 x 25, 30 x 20, or 25 x 15cm were reserved for liturgical books, festive prayer books, legal and administrative codices, didactic and moralising texts, practical handbooks, and above all for the chronicles and historiographic manuscripts, books about the crusades and the adventures of the crusaders, and chansons de geste. Les Chroniques de Hainaut – the three-volume Chronicles of Hainaut by Jacques de Guise and translated by Jean Wauquelin was commissioned in 1446, written in Mons in 1449 by Jacotin de Bois, and illuminated in Brussels c. 1449 and in Bruges in 1451–1468 (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, ms. 9242–9244). It measured 42.3 × 28.8cm (the subsequent volumes: 44 × 31.2cm), and were amongst the largest format codices in the library of the Burgundian Dukes [fig. 141].69 The frontispiece miniature of the Chronicles, created in the workshop of Rogier van der Weyden, captures

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well the large format of the volume [fig. 142]. Similarly, the codex of The Deeds and Conquests of Alexander the Great, or Le Livre des Faits et de Conquestes d’Alexandre le Grand, compiled from texts by Jean Wauquelin (Mons and Brussels 1447–1448; Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. fr. 9342) measured 43.5 × 30cm.70 Another manuscript, Le Livre du gouvernement des proces by Aegidius Romanus, had a similar folio format – 44.5 x 31cm, translated by Jean Wauquelin, executed in Mons and Bruges c. 1452 (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, ms. 9043).71 The four-volume History of Charles Martel, written by David Aubert, and illuminated by Loyset Liedet and his workshop successors between 1467 and 1472 (Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, ms. 6–9) measured ←161 | 162→41 × 29cm.72 All the aforementioned examples were substantial, monumental, representative books, with content and illuminations designed to announce and visualise the splendour of ducal and dynastic power. The Chronicles of Hainaut narrate the story of the newly gained territory of the Burgundian country and discuss the genealogical lineage from the ancient Trojans, through the counts of Hainaut, Holland and Zeeland, to Philip the Good. The History of Charles Martel proclaims the legitimisation of the sovereign power of the Burgundian dukes and their heirs, the ancient French monarchs, the Carolingians. As instruments of political propaganda, such display objects must have been nomen omen hefty!

In comparison with these large-scale volumes, the private prayer books, significantly smaller in format, required unparalleled artistic precision and finesse of execution [fig. 143]. The minute scale was compensated for by the mastery of forms. Moreover, the minute format required a high level of artistry. It forced the artist to fill the limited surface of the folio with a multitude of motifs, whether figurative or purely ornamental; to demonstrate their skill, and, through the display of the brushstrokes, to manifest virtuosity through the overcoming of technical challenges. The artist therefore attained something seemingly impossible by using a brush to paint fine details in the limited space of the folio; making evident the fact that the illumination was painted, and not drawn in metalpoint or pen, made it even more praise-worthy. The illuminator’s precision in the application and handling of paint, and their accuracy in depicting details, with the emphasis on the painterly means with which such a representation was created, highlighted the status of the object, be it a prayer book, breviary or a book of hours, destined for the private admiration and personal use of the owner. The microscale meant that these volumes were not only things that stimulated pious prayer, but that they were primarily designed to be manipulated, handled, turned, and opened; users had to turn over the pages or flip through the book, admiring its beautiful illuminations. They were a feast for the eyes and a vehicle of haptic joy for their owner’s hands.

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Thus, the Breviary (or the Book of Hours) of Charles the Bold, executed in the workshop of Simon Marmion in Valenciennes between 1467 and 1470, surviving in fragmentary state (Cleveland Museum of Art, inv. no. 2005.55; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Robert Lehman Collection, inv. no. 1975.1.2477), is painted delicately in tempera and gold on folios, which measure 16 × 11.9cm [fig. 144],73 and the Prayer Book of Charles the Bold from the workshop of Liévin van Lathem in Antwerp (1469), written by Nicolas Spierinc in Ghent between 1470 and 1471 (Los Angeles, J. Paul Getty Museum, ms. 37) measures only 12.4 × 9.2cm [fig. 145].74 To the similar category of small ←165 | 166→books of hours belongs the fifteenth-century Codex 470 from the Biblioteca Trivulziana in Milan, consisting of 366 folios measuring 13.3 × 8.9cm, decorated with twenty-two miniatures en grisaille in the workshop or in the circle of Philippe de Mazerolles [fig. 146].75 The tiny format characterises the prayer book from Frankfurt (Museum Angewandte Kunst, LM 35) by the Master of Codex Rotundus, active in Bruges in the 1470s – only 9.8 × 6.9cm [fig. 147].76 It is but one example of the common practice of making small codices in Bruges, and other Netherlandish centres, and a testimony to the wide-spreading of the type. We know that in the second half of the fifteenth century these books were sold on the open market, directly from the workshops, and at markets and fairs, such as Pand in Bruges, or similar fairs in Antwerp. The Prayer Book of Nikolaus Humbracht the Younger (Frankfurt, Stadt- und Universitätsbibliothek, Ms. germ. oct. 3), measuring 13.9 × 10cm, was created in the workshop in Antwerp in the early sixteenth century [fig. 148].77 This and another Book of Hours from Frankfurt (Museum Angewandte Kunst, LM 56), illuminated by Simon Bening and another artist trained in Italy, probably between 1520 and 1530, testify to the long-lasting fashion for small illuminated manuscripts [fig. 149].78

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One of the most precious and refined late medieval books, the so-called Black Hours, now at the Morgan Library in New York (inv. no. M. 493), was created in 1475 in Bruges in the workshop or in the circle of Willem Vrelant, for an unknown person of the Burgundian court of Charles the Bold [fig. 150].79 The one hundred and twenty-one black pages are decorated with forty figurative illuminations, fifty initials and foliage in one hundred and thirty-eight borders, all painted in bright colours, and in silver and gold, with texts written in gold and silver. The codex is one of a few surviving Flemish manuscripts with pages painted black (for instance the Black Prayer Book of Charles the Bold, also called the Black Book of Hours of Galeazzo Maria Sforza c. 1466–1475, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1856, 25 × 18cm – [fig. 151]).80 Unlike other ←168 | 169→manuscripts with stained black pages, this volume is rather small: 17 x 12cm. The micro-format emphasises the skill of the illuminator, and forces viewers to admire the virtuosity of the execution of the smallest details and shapes; the reduced scale, by contrast, highlights the profusion of small figures and the richness of the details.

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There are also Italian examples of small-scale manuscripts. For instance, the Book of Hours of Lorenzo il Magnifico (Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana),81 written in 1485, contains 233 pages in small format (15.3 x 9cm). It is decorated in the style characteristic of Cosimo’s and Lorenzo’s favoured illuminator, Francesco di Antonio del Chierico, active between 1454 and 1484 [fig. 152].

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The tradition of small-scale books goes back to the fourteenth century and is linked with the production of illuminated manuscripts for powerful women – queens and duchesses.82 The Book of Hours of Jeanne d’Évreux (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, inv. no. 54.1.2) [figs. 153–154, 473–474],83 commissioned by the Queen’s husband, Charles IV (1322–1328), and executed between 1324 and 1328 by Jean Pucelle, contains prayers in the Dominican system and served the deeply personal piety of the French Queen. The codex has two hundred and nine pages and measures only 9.4 x 6.4cm. Its small folios include Latin texts, twenty-five ←172 | 173→full-page painted miniatures and seven hundred tiny figures in the margins. The en grisaille decoration highlights the sophisticated quality of the courtly codex. The motifs in the borders – flamboyant and anecdotal – and the main miniatures, placed within architectonic frames, form illusionistic compositions, which stress that the libretto was not only a handbook to assist in prayer, but also, if not primarily an artistic object, a kind of curiosity, a courtly toy. The Psalter of Bonne of Luxembourg has a similar structure and function (New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Cloisters, inv. no. 1969.69.86) [fig. 155].84 Its original owner was Bonne de Luxembourg, the daughter of the Bohemian king John of Luxembourg and the sister of the future emperor Charles the IV; she became the wife of John, Duke of Normandy, Count of Anjou and Maine: the future king of France (John II the Good). It was decorated before 1349 by Jean Le Noir and his assistants, including his son, Burgot Le Noir. The manuscript measures 12.6 × 8.8cm and consists of 333 pages, which contain one hundred and fifty psalms in Latin, a French translation of the Passion prayers, and the calendar of feast days. It is richly illustrated with forty en grisaille or semi-en grisaille miniatures, and with birds and animals intertwined with foliage in the borders. Viewers can admire a huge range of birds, captured with unparalleled precision, as in an ornithological atlas, and hares, lions and chimeras. A slightly larger item, measuring 15.3 x 10.5cm is the so-called Book of Hours of Marguerite de Beaujeu (if she indeed was the original owner of the manuscript), preserved in the British Library in London, also known as the Book of Hours from Saint-Omer and arranged according to the liturgy of the local diocese. It was created either in Saint-Omer or Thérouanne between 1318 and 1325, for a high-ranking noble woman of Saint-Omer named Marguerite (the identification with the daughter of Louis de Beaujeu, Lord of Montferrand, the niece of the French connétable, Humbert de Beaujeu-Montpensier, is questionable). They are also rather richly decorated with minute illuminations, figurative miniatures and drolleries.85

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“Male” prayer books are typically larger. They are in a middling (c. 25 x 15cm.) or a large format, as for instance the famous Grandes Heures du Duc de Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. lat. 919, and Louvre, R.F. 2835), completed in 1409, decorated in turn by Jacquemart de Hesdin, Pseudo-Jacquemart and other illuminators; this measures 39.7 x 29.5cm. Further examples include the Heures du Maréchal de Boucicaut (Paris, Musée Jacquemart-André, ms. 2) dated 1405–1408, with forty-four miniatures by the Boucicaut Master painted on pages measuring 27.4 × 19cm; or the Grandes Heures de Rohan, (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. lat. 9471), decorated between 1431 and 1433 by the Rohan Master with cards measuring 29 × 20cm.86 At times, manuscripts commissioned ←176 | 177→for women were also characterised by this large format, for instance the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany (30 x 19.5cm), illuminated by Jean Bourdichon between 1503 and 1508 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, ms. lat. 9474).87

Small-scale, female prayer books were commissioned throughout the fifteenth century. The Book of Hours of Marguerite de Foix, Duchess of Brittany, dated 1470–1480 (London, Victoria and Albert Museum, Salting Collection 1222), on 288 folios, measuring 17.6 x 10cm, include twenty-four calendar illustrations, twelve full-page miniatures and twenty-five smaller illustrations.88 The tradition of small manuscripts is continued at the turn of the sixteenth century with another book of hours of Anne of ←177 | 178→Brittany, Duchess of Brittany and Queen of France, the wife of Charles VIII and later of Louis XII: the Very Small Book of Hours dated c. 1498 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, nouv. acq. lat. 3120), measuring 6.6 × 4.6cm,89 and the Book of Hours from Nantes (Bibliothèque Municipale, BM 18) measuring 12 × 8cm;90 the Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany and Mary I of England dated c. 1498 (Lyon, Bibliothèque Municipale, ms. 1558), decorated by Jean Poyer (dimensions: 13.1 × 8.9cm);91 and finally, the slightly larger Small Book of Hours of Anne of Brittany dated 1499– 1514 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, nouv. acq. lat. 3027),92 measuring 17 × 12cm, with twelve surviving miniatures and rich decoration in the margins, including an emblematic, recurring motif of the ermine [figs. 156–157].

The microscale renders these objects peculiarly mobile and tactile. They were destined to be held in hands, carried from one place to another, to be opened and closed, flipped through, unfolded, to have their pages turned over.93 These diverse operations revealed their function as moveable, collectible items, objects of the greatest private luxury, things that delighted with their artifice and unusual form. Besides their religious function, they were also courtly toys, promoting the skill of the painter and the scribe, employed despite and against the constraints of the small scale. They were a testimony to the seemingly unattainable: a miraculously executed virtuosity.

At the same time, their religious function, assisting the individual with their prayers, continued to be important. This role influenced their use, which was both manual and somatic. Namely, as in the case of the London Seilern Triptych from the circle of the Master of Flémalle (see chapter III.2, fig. 248), here in small- and medium-sized codices, we also see the fascinating traces of handling with such manuscripts. A good example of this is in the medium-sized manuscript II 6907 from the Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels, most likely commissioned for the Poor Clares or Franciscan tertiary nuns shortly after 1503 [fig. 158].94 The decoration, including the miniatures and borders with illusionistic flowers, foliage, snails, and insects, was executed by a workshop from Bruges or Ghent. The manuscript includes prayers, including numerous indulgences, and offices for every day of the week. These prayers were meant to be read and spoken in front of the miniatures with saints and cult objects to which they were addressed, including Christ (illuminations showing Arma Christi or the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem), the Virgin (miniature of Virgo in Sole), and St. Anne. Mary’s mother is depicted in the scene on fol. 121v, which shows the moment when the Christ Child is passed from his mother’s lap into St. Anne’s embrace. This moving, devotional scene captures the tenderness of motherhood and the aura of family love. It stimulated not only pious meditation and contemplation, but also a very physical interaction. The faces of all three figures – St. Anne, the Virgin and Child – are completely blurred and smudged. Apparently, such “damage” was caused by the frequent kissing of the depicted characters. Whilst holding the manuscript in their hands, the nuns or pious women held the miniature up to their lips – and, mesmerized, kissed it, often and passionately, so that the paint became diluted and smeared. Truly, it is difficult to find better evidence of the sensual, somatic handling of devotional objects in the Late Middle Ages.95

III.1.2. Precious metalwork

During the reigns of Charles VI, Queen Isabeau and the Valois Dukes – Louis I and Louis II of Anjou, Jean de Berry, and the great Burgundian ←180 | 181→dukes – the French and Burgundian goldsmiths attained new technical and artistic heights.96 Between 1380 and 1422 over six hundred goldsmiths worked in Paris and Dijon to satisfy the growing market, later supported by the Netherlandish workshops, mostly in Bruges and Brussels. Thanks to the invention of en ronde-bosse enamels, and because of the strict regulations enforced over the quantity of precious metals in various alloys and new marks of gold content, artisans produced sophisticated, precisely made, skilful and precious objects d’art for the king, the queen and the Dukes of Burgundy, Berry, Bourbon and Anjou.97 This brought about a great fashion ←181 | 182→and demand for jewels and precious items. They were commissioned and bought out of a fascination with their splendour, and admiration for the skill of their makers; as such they were ornaments and indexes of the status of their owners. They were frequently offered as diplomatic gifts,98 and their religious functions, be it devotional or liturgical, were merely secondary. They included large-scale examples such as the Goldenes Rössl (now at the Treasury of the Altötting Abbacy, Bavaria), but most commonly they were objects of small if not miniature dimensions [fig. 14].99

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The small golden altarpiece in Frankfurt (Museum Angewandte Kunst) [fig. 159], which shows inside the Adoration of the Magi and Sts. Barbara and Catherine, and on the versos the Annunciation, is embossed and pounced in gilded copper and is characterised by its extremely small scale: 13.5 x 32cm.100 Another similar object – the Passion triptych in New York (Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of J. Pierpont Morgan, 1917), executed in gilded copper and silver, originally partially enamelled, measures 24.8 x 40.2cm [fig. 160]. It was probably made by a German artist – from Bavaria or Austria – in around 1430.101 The two objects were portable, used during journeys or carried from one place to another, between the different living quarters of their owners. Created in precious materials, with skilful methods (pouncing, embossing, enamelling), they delighted with the price of the material and the skill of their makers, but at the same time they stressed the splendour of their owners, as visible signs of ←184 | 185→their power, kept and displayed among various other precious items, such as illuminated books, jewels, and metalwork. The common use of these small-scale props, visible traces of courtly splendour, can be identified through the links between the execution of the work in precious metals and manuscript illuminations. The triptych from New York in its composition resembles illuminations by the Limburg Brothers and the Boucicaut Master, therefore it seems plausible that the goldsmiths working for the likely patron – the Duke of Bavaria, Louis the Bearded (1338–1447), the brother of the French Queen Isabeau de Bavière, were familiar with Franco-Flemish manuscript illuminations.

Various medallions hanging on chains or necklaces (pendants) or pinned onto coats as brooches, were not only worn to ornament garments, but, executed with the utmost precision, they were intended to be held in hand and inspected up-close. They were meant to delight the eye and entertain with their minute form. Sophisticated details and the theme of the medallion were revealed only when scrutinised at a short distance. The medallion with the Holy Trinity (The Throne of Grace of the Pietas Patris type), made in Paris (or in the Southern Netherlands) in gold and multi-coloured enamel, decorated with pearls ←185 | 186→(c. 1400–1410, Washington, National Gallery of Art) [fig. 161],102 is perhaps the jewel listed in the inventory of the precious belongings of Gian Galeazzo Sforza, pawned at a Milanese merchant’s in 1402 and 1403 (although a similar item is also included in the inventory of the chapel at Dijon, as being among the possessions of Philippe the Bold of Burgundy in 1404). The theme of the medallion, measuring 12cm in diameter, was recognisable at a relatively long distance, but the figures and minute details could be admired fully only when up close. This means that it was necessary to move the object, or for the beholder to look more closely. A significantly smaller medallion, only 4.5cm in diameter, from Aachen (Domschatzkammer), created in the early fifteenth century in gilded silver, en ronde bosse enamel and pearls, served as a necklace pendant [fig. 162].103 The current assemblage of the necklace is in fact of a later date (the last third of the fifteenth century), but it most likely recalls the original arrangement. Perhaps it formed a part of the gift of Margaret of York, Duchess of Burgundy and wife of Charles the Bold, to the Cathedral in Aachen, destined to decorate the venerated statue of the Virgin; the Duchess went there on a pilgrimage in 1474 to visit the holy image and bequeathed many precious objects to it. Originally, the medallion was worn on the festive robe. It depicts a small, delightful child – not necessarily the Christ Child – playing with a spoon and plate during his meal. To see these details, one had to examine the object from between 10 to 20cm or bring it close to the eyes. The task of unravelling the minute details must have been good entertainment. When the medallion and the necklace were placed on the Aachen Madonna, their details remained practically invisible, redundant for its new function.

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The same applies to sophisticated and precious tableware. In Vienna (Kunsthistorisches Museum, Hofjagd- und Rüstkammer), there is a surviving set of knives with brown handles, decorated with ivory reliefs [fig. 163].104 Perhaps, these items belonged to the prominent and dazzling gift of Charles the Bold given to the Emperor Frederick III and his son, Maximilian, during their diplomatic meeting in Trier in 1475. The reliefs on the handles (14cm) show pages, courtly cavaliers and dames, as well as Saints Barbara and Catherine. These knives were display rather than functional objects; they manifested courtly splendour, and were shown ←187 | 188→to the guests among other precious items, but they might also have been used by servants during special occasions, such as ceremonial feasts, to carve, portion and serve the meat. In both contexts, these items were held in the hand, manipulated, and their reliefs viewed close to. Similarly, one could admire an amusing monkey riding a deer, executed in painterly enamel and niello on a gilded silver spoon of 5.1cm in width, today at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London [fig. 164].105 The spoon came from a fifteenth century set created in a Franco-Flemish goldsmith’s workshop c. 1410–1420. Monkeys belonged to the repertoire of courtly curiosities; they were kept at the courts and played with; as, rare and expensive exotic animals, they manifested the wealth of their owner and the refined ludic character of elite culture. During banquets and feasts pantomimes took place with actors dressed as monkeys, or the actual trained monkeys danced and performed various tricks. Such entremets – spectacles in between the courses – were performed in Bruges in 1468, during the famous marriage of Charles the Bold to Margaret of York. A guest who lifted a spoon or a different element of the tableware would be amused in a twofold manner, as he/she just saw or was about to see such an interlude with an ape.

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The focused gaze, looking from up close; the diligent scrutiny of details – these are the conditions of viewing the entertainment objects that belonged to courtly culture. But this mode of seeing was extended to other objects. The so-called Libretto (A Small Book) now in the Museum of Florence Cathedral (Museo dell’Opera del Duomo) was a gift of the French king Charles V to his brother, Prince Louis I of Anjou [fig. 165].106 It was created ←190 | 191→from solid gold with enamels, pearls and rubies by a French goldsmith c. 1380. The book was a devotional item: a small, portable reliquary in the form of a folded polyptych or a harmonica folder. When unfolded it measures 24.4cm in width, whilst folded its dimensions are only 7.5 x 6.3cm. It fits easily in the palm. On its small panels, divided into four rows with microscopic arcades, there are relics with accompanying, explanatory texts on individual parchment cards. The most valuable relics – of the Passion of Christ, including fragments of the cross, spear, nails, and crown of thorns – are placed in the central part, covered by a plaquette, insertable from the top, decorated with an image of the Crucifixion on the one side and, on the other, the Adoration of the Holy Trinity (the Throne of Grace) by the ducal couple. The object was priceless, as it contained nearly eighty holy relics. It was meant to be open, unfolded, touched, and to be looked at. Finally, it was also used in prayers and meditations. But its primary role was to be admired, to dazzle with the richness of the materials used and the preciousness of the relics.

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Charles the V commissioned at least two, if not three similar reliquary libretti. Their story confirms the protective function of the amulet. The ‘book’ created for himself was inherited by his great-great-grandson, Charles VIII, who lost it during the battle of Fornovo in 1495, when he was defeated and arrested by the Milanese troops. It was described at the time as a small, folded tableau with relics, and it was subsequently depicted as such in a sixteenth-century drawing.107 The description says that the king ‘kept it always with him, as it ensured his safety.’108 Charles V gave the second libretto to his ←193 | 194→youngest brother, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy. The gift was noted in Philip’s will (1404) in a particular manner. The document states that the reliquary contained relics from the Royal churches, namely Sainte-Chapelle and Saint-Denis; that it was to protect the continuity of the Valois-Bourgogne lineage, and that it could never be broken or damaged, or separated from the Duke; each subsequent duke was to carry it with himself, and not divide it into pieces.109 Perhaps it was for this libretto that Philip the Good, another Burgundian Duke, commissioned a leather container in 1420/1421 for a ‘tableau, which the Duke carries always with him’.110 In turn, his son Charles the Bold lost this object – which is significant – at the battle of Grandson against the Swiss. It is clear that the Valois kings and dukes kept these reliquary libretti as protective amulets and took them to their battles. There is no documentary evidence for this supposition, but it is highly likely that a fourth libretto existed, which would have been bequeathed by the king to his fourth son – Duke Jean de Berry.

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A small French or Franco-Flemish triptych known as the Triptych from Choques (c. 1400, Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum) was equally handy and mobile, though designed only to be placed on a table and not to be carried on one’s person [figs. 166–167].111 With its wings open the triptych measured 12.7 x 12.5cm, and could have been handled to reveal the richness and variety of the techniques applied to suit the theme and purpose of the object. It was made of solid gold, the material suitable for containers of precious relics. These holy remains were placed in the centre of the main field, enclosed in a box accessible through a flap. The traces of usage on the edge suggest that it was frequently opened, and the relics viewed and perhaps also touched. On the flap there is a carved face of Christ of the veraicon or mandylion type – images of the celebrated relics – engraved in the technique of pointillé. Around it, in the remaining sections of the verso, is an Assumption of the Virgin, lifted by angels towards the Enthroned Christ in the mandorla. To see the relics, or to touch them and to admire the Holy Face, one had to turn the object around. The verso was the actual, functional front of the object. Turned again, with the recto facing the viewer, it showed on the closed wings St. John the Baptist and St. Catherine of Alexandria – the patrons of the Valois dynasty in the French Kingdom and in the Duchy of Burgundy – depicted in the monochromatic, flat champlevé enamel technique, which forms a background for the golden figures. Above them there is a full-figured group of the Coronation of the Virgin in pure, unenameled gold. The scene acts as a link to the main theme of the object: the Passion of Christ, and the Compassion of the Virgin. The opening of the wings reveals the multi-coloured image of the Man of Sorrows supported by the angel – an Imago Pietatis in the type of Vir dolorum, which refers to the miraculous image and the relics of the True Cross from the church of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme in Rome. It is likely that the fragment of the relics was placed in the triptych. The Angelic Pietà in the central panel was created in the technique émail en ronde bosse. The eyes are saturated with the white of Christ’s body and the translucent red of His ←196 | 197→cloak (émail à rouge clair). In the technique of multicolour émail de basse taille (enamel in low relief), the artist executed the figures on the external wings – the suffering Virgin Mary and St. John the Evangelist. The multiplication of the effects of precious materials, the gradation of colours, the shift from flat to three-dimensional forms was all revealed during the handling of the object: when it was moved, turned and open.

In his treasury, King Charles V kept hundreds of precious metalwork objects, with around twenty paintings and two hundred tapestries. Only a small number survived. The most precious show the owner’s fascination with antiquity. An antique cameo made of agate, showing the bust of a Roman emperor, is mounted as the crowning element of the king’s sceptre from c. 1365 (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Cabinet des Medailles). A thoroughly new cover of the Ottonian Gospels, created in 1379, imitates the ‘ancient’ style used at the turn of the thirteenth century. This archaization was a collector’s strategy that carried a political message: it highlighted the continuity of the monarch’s power with tradition, legitimising the rule of the relatively new, Valois dynasty, and securing the image of the ruler after the national crisis of 1356–1364. His successor, Charles VI (ruled 1380 to 1422) – a weak, sickly monarch, under pressure from the competing Armagnac and Burgundian factions, who finally surrendered Paris and northern France to the English troops of Henry V and the Burgundian Philip the Good – was actually a distinguished collector. His collection of precious items included metalwork, embroidered draperies and garments, tapestries and books. Unfortunately, the fantastic collections he inherited from his father were partially appropriated by the regents of the underaged king: Louis of Anjou, Jean de Berry and Philip the Bold, and even Louis II Bourbon; his own collection was reduced by the expenses incurred during courtly celebrations and wars with the English and Burgundians. In the end, the collection was dispersed following the conquest of Paris in 1422 and the taking over of the court by Duke John Bedford, the Regent of France for Henry VI of England. Prior to these events, Paris remained the capital of European courtly splendour and the centre of production of luxury objects. An important role in this was played by Charles’s wife, Queen Isabeau de Bavière, an amateur of finely executed precious items and the owner of a private collection of jewels and metalwork. Between 1380 and 1422 over six hundred goldsmiths were active in Paris, all producing sophisticated, skilfully and precisely executed, costly ←197 | 198→objects d’art for the king and queen, as well as for the Dukes of Burgundy, Berry, Bourbon and Anjou, satisfying the huge demand and fashion for expensive items and jewels. These objects functioned as ornaments and evidence of their owner’s status; only their secondary role was devotional or liturgical. These portable, collectible items often became gifts, necessary in the complex diplomatic system. They also served as ex-votos donated to various churches or monasteries, and in both instances they manifested the power, might and wealth of the donor.

Louis of Anjou was a particularly avid collector of precious metalwork, as documented by the two inventories of his estate. He manifestly enjoyed arranging, categorizing and describing the objects in his collection: he dictated and introduced by his own hand the items into these inventories. The first one from 1365–1368 lists almost eight hundred objects,112 whilst the later one from 1379–1380 gives three thousand six hundred items.113 Detailed descriptions indicate the passion of their owner for both artistic skill and for the preciousness of the materials used. Louis’s collection of luxurious golden and silver tableware was the largest in France, and he also collected other types of metalwork, jewels, tapestries and books. The inventories testify to the overwhelming richness and diversity of forms and techniques. Apart from the aforementioned libretto, his collection included: a golden chalice with portraits of the Duke and Duchess and their entourage against a background decorated with foliage; tableware in the shape of a gryphon, monkey, fox and peacock; a silver, gilded and enamelled ship; a cup with the coat-of-arms of France, Navarre and Champagne, which came from the treasury of King Philip VI of Valois, decorated in the rare technique of plique à jour enamel. Unfortunately, almost nothing has survived from this fine collection. The objects were sold or melted down to make coins, or divided into individual precious stones to finance the expenses of Louis’s war campaigns.

The ducal collection of Jean de Berry is well known thanks to inventories from 1401–1403, 1413–1414 and 1416, drafted by the custodian of the treasury, Robinet d’Etampes; the first list includes 1,317. Characteristic of Jean de Berry’s pattern of collecting are numerous antique specimens: thirty-three cameos and medals of the four Roman emperors, encrusted with precious stones. For the treasury of Sainte-Chapelle in Bourges, the Duke ordered a beautiful, thoroughly all’antica cameo, with his portrait based on images of enthroned Roman emperors, crowned by two Victories (Paris, Louvre, MR 80).

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The Burgundian dukes collected metalwork on a significant scale, though their passion was not as grand as that of Queen Isabeau, Louis I of Anjou or Jean de Berry. Philip the Bold collected golden and silver crosses and reliquaries, tableware, ornaments for the table, jewels and decorations for garments. They demonstrated the splendour of his court during various celebrations: at banquets, sojourns in various cities, marriages, or by becoming gifts. The Dukes introduced the fashion for necklaces and golden jewels decorated with white enamels with motifs of animals, angels and sophisticated ladies; the Duke himself wore bracelets and pouches incrusted with jewels [fig. 168]. His New Year’s gifts included precious stones and metalwork, for instance in 1382 he gave a few golden brooches with white enamels to King Charles, at least one of which had the motif of the fleur-de-lis (lilies from the French coat-of-arms); he gave another to Monsieur d’Arquel with a motif of a white dog. The receipts from 1389–1390- and later documents testify to ←199 | 200→the frequent orders of figures, figurative groups, devotional altars, golden – ymages and tableaux – with the Holy Trinity, the Crucifixion, the Pietà or with saints, destined to be offered as gifts. The wife of the Duke, Marguerite de Mâle, had her own collection of jewels and precious things, described in detail in a postmortem inventory of 1405. John the Fearless, who did not have the resources of his father, collected mostly stones, predominantly skilfully cut diamonds. However, he also bought juweelen: rings, necklaces, brooches and rosaries with his personal emblems. In turn, the collection of Philip the Good was admired by contemporaries for its richness. He bought metalwork and jewels not in Paris but in the Netherlands – mostly from goldsmiths in Bruges. Towards the end of his life it took three days to inventory all the golden metalwork in his vast collection.

These treasuries also contained large-scale objects, such as the various tableaux à l’image – scenically arranged, animated figurative groups of the Goldenes Rößl type [fig. 14]: Tableau de la Trinité from the Louvre; the Calvary of Matthias Corvinus from Esztergom; and the Montalto Reliquary, and the Holy Thorn Reliquary from the British Museum. However, these collections consisted predominantly of medium- and small-scale items; most frequently these sophisticated, minute things were meant to be taken out of their chests and held in the hand for connois-seurial examination with tender, fondling touch. The sensory experience of these objects was supposed to provide a primarily corporeal pleasure, before the religious, political or any other roles were considered.

III.1.3. Devotional beads and nuts

The Late Middle Ages developed a phenomenon of micro-carving. In the Southern Netherlands, the supreme refinement and technical skill of craftsmen enabled them to obtain minute forms in wood, such as small altarpieces, ciboria, tabernacles, religious amulets and devotional artefacts [figs. 169–170], including prayer-nuts or rosary beads [figs. 171–197].114

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These nuts were most commonly made from boxwood, and sometimes from beech wood or palm trees. Their scale is striking, as they measure on average between 4 and 7cm, but represent crowded compositions in some instances featuring more than twenty figures. The making of these objects was utterly laborious and painstaking, requiring unparalleled dexterity and patience. Their iconography encompasses various biblical scenes such as the Annunciation, Nativity, Adoration of the Magi, Prayer in the Garden, Road to Calvary, Crucifixion, Lamentation, Pietà, Resurrection, Last Judgment, Mass of St. Gregory and episodes from the lives of saints. At times they were mounted in silver or kept in casings or caskets, such as the examples now in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam [figs. 173–174].

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Elaborate prayer beads such as these survive in a number of collections including The Metropolitan Museum in New York, Cleveland Museum of Art, Ontario Gallery of Art in Toronto, Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, British Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum in London, Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, Schnütgen Museum in Cologne, Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe in Hamburg and Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen. Their current dispersal between various European institutions confirms that they were exported from the Netherlands and circulated widely within early modern commercial networks. Adam Dirksz. (Adam Theodrici), the master from Brabant, specialised in the production of these micro-carvings from the end of the fifteenth century until 1530. A group amounting to eighty prayer beads is attributed to his workshop or workshops from his milieu.115 However, there were various other Netherlandish workshops which created this type of artefacts, though with lesser skill and precision. This art of micro-carving ←204 | 205→flourished between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries because of the cult of the rosary, avidly promoted by the Dominicans since 1470. From the claustrum of the Upper Rhine monasteries, were it was developed between 1409 and 1435, the devotion to the rosary was transmitted towards the city and the middle class, as well as to the elites and the Habsburg family.116 An earlier tradition of repeating the pater noster existed before the formulation of the prayer, and it used less sophisticated strings of beads (such as the one depicted in the Arnolfini Portrait by Jan van Eyck) [fig. 500] than later more luxurious types of rosaries. In the illumination from the Hours of Mary of Burgundy (1477, Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. 1857, fol. 43v), there appears a new type of string with an elaborate bead, clearly identifiable as a devotional and meditative tool [fig. 175].

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Nonetheless, the wide dissemination of prayer nuts and beads was not exclusively linked with the agenda of promoting a new form of piety. These fascinating, carved micro-objects created by the Netherlandish artists c. 1470–1530 became a clear symbol of their patrons’ status and wealth. Various paintings depict the way in which the nuts were worn and presented, for instance the Portrait of a Young Lady by Martin Schongauer, from the collection of Heinz Kisters in Kreuzlingen, dated c. 1478; the Portrait of Jan Gerritsz. van Egmond van de Nijenburg from 1518, painted in the workshop of Jacob Cornelisz. van Oostsanen (Amsterdam, Rijksmuseum; Paris, Louvre; St. Petersburg, Hermitage; Berlin, private collection and other versions); the Portrait of Claus Stalburg de Rijke c. 1526 by Conrad Faber von Creuznach (Casteel Huis Bergh); and many others [figs. 176–177]. At times, according to traditional accounts, the paternoster beads were believed to have healing and quasi-magical properties. Some contained mixtures from pharmacies or mineral ingredients, in particular olfactory substances. According to a post-mortem inventory (1377) the young Mary of France, daughter of Charles V of France, had among her possessions a paternoster filled with ambergris; her father in 1380 had prayer beads with musk, favoured also by Charles the Bad, King of Navarre (mentioned in his will of 1386) and King René d’Anjou (the object is documented in 1432). In 1300, ←207 | 208→Constance of Sicily, Queen of Aragon, owned a string of beads filled with labdanum, resin obtained from shrubs of Cistus ladaniferus and Cistus creticus, which gave balsamic and amber aroma.117 This quest for smelling substances partially stimulated the demand for boxwood prayer beads from between the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Boxwood has a distinctive and strong smell because of the essential oils, while its extract had wide medicinal properties. However, the most important reasons for the selection of this type of wood were its material and technical properties. Large and old boxwood bush had been appreciated for centuries for the compact, hard and durable qualities of its wood. It was used in intarsia panels that decorated expensive furniture. Boxwood was also used in woodcutting and in the production of musical instruments. The material ensured the durability of the object, whilst enabling minute, decorative details to be carved in deep relief without the risk of breaking or damaging the elements. Thus, it proved particularly suitable for micro-carving [fig. 178].