[ENLUMINURE]. - Lot 16

[ENLUMINURE]. St. Catherine and a standing saint holding an open book (St. Genevieve?). Enluminated from a liturgical manuscript (or stand-alone composition, devotional image?). France, Paris, circa 1530-1540. Attributable to a Parisian artist of the "Etienne Colaud group" (Martial Vaillant? active in Paris from 1523 to 1560 or a Parisian artist close to the painter of Paris, BnF, NAF 25165?). Sight size: 230 x 150 mm Framed folio. Traces of writing on the manuscript or facing leaf (discharge, white lettering on the saint's cloak (Geneviève?) and on the ground, we can make out (upside down): "Mem..." or "Comme..." (for Memoria? Commemoratio?). Miniature framed in liquid gold, with Renaissance arabesque and acanthus decoration. This large folio features two full-length saints, one easily identifiable by her attributes, Saint Catherine with her sword and the wheel of her torture, the other simply holding a book (Saint Genevieve) and difficult to identify without the associated text. A book of hours illuminated for the dauphin François de France, future François II (arms on ff. 14 and 76v), dated 1555 (Paris, BnF, NAL 104). This book of hours has been linked to an archive attesting to the payment of a sum to Martial Vaillant (Gallant?) "for the illumination of a pair of hours for the service of mondit seigneur" (AN, KK 106, f. 2; see Léon de Laborde, La Renaissance des arts à la cour de France. Études sur le seizième siècle, t. 1, Paris, 1850, pp. 305-306; Cousseau, 2016, p. 88). Its stylistic features are comparable to those of the present illumination. Note that Cousseau insists on the somewhat archaic character of the miniatures in the Hours of François II, dated 1555-1557 (Paris, BnF, NAL 104), which reproduce bellemarian motifs from the years 1538-1530. Inluminator and "historieur", Martial Vaillant is documented from 1523 to 1562. He is said to have been Etienne Colaud's son-in-law, having married one of Colaud's four daughters (Cousseau, 2016, p. 286). He was a member of the Confrérie de Saint-Jean l'Evangéliste, founded at the altar of the church of Saint-André-des-Arts in Paris, which governed the book and illumination trades. This would explain a certain stylistic proximity to the works of the "Etienne Colaud group", a group of artists working in the same aesthetic as Etienne Colaud, a Parisian artist active from 1512 to 1541). Another artist whose influence can be seen in the present miniatures (lots 16 and 17) is the one who painted a manuscript Plutarch, Life of Hannibal, translation by Simon Bourgoing, a copy produced for Gui de Baudreuil, abbot of Saint-Martin-aux-Bois from circa 1491-1492 to 1530 (Paris, BnF, NAF 25165; see Cousseau, 2016, pp. 162-163, who compares the Parisian artist to the one who painted Hours for the Aleaume-Tenon couple, Arsenal, MS 1175). It should be noted that the illuminations in this manuscript are attributed to an artist from the "Collault circle", and Gui de Baudreuil was also the patron of a dismembered Missel known as the "Missel de Gui de Baudreuil", also painted in the orbit of Etienne Colaud. Gui de Baudreuil also commissioned the French translation of Erasmus' L'Éducation d'un prince chrétien, intended by Guillaume de Montmorency for the French dauphin François, son of Louise de Savoie (Paris, Coutau-Begarie, October 14, 2022, lot 38, pre-empted by Chantilly, Musée Condé), whose illumination also betrays a milieu close to the two present illuminations (lots 16 and 17). See : Cousseau, M.-B. Etienne Colaud et l'enluminure parisienne sous le règne de François Ier, Tours et Rennes, 2016, pp. 87-88: "Other acts concerning Martial Vaillant show that he too held an important place on the Parisian artistic scene. In June 1523, he was one of the governors of the Confrérie de Saint-Jean l'Evangéliste...In 1542, when he inherited part of Etienne Colaud's estate, he was described as a bourgeois of Paris". On the "Colaud group", see also the work of M. Orth, Renaissance Manuscripts. The Sixteenth Century, London-Turnhout, Harvey Miller Publishers, 2015.