Photo. Giraudon.
APRIL.
Pol de Limbourg.
From The “Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry.”
To face page 158.
Other extremely important MSS. acquired by the Duke himself are the MS. de la Coche de Marguerite d’Angoulême and the Psalter of Queen Ingeburge, of which the Duke was particularly proud. It commences with a Calendar, followed by a series of paintings on gold backgrounds representing scenes from the Old and New Testaments, and dates from the thirteenth century. It belonged to Queen Ingeburge, the unhappy and neglected wife of Philippe Auguste and in it are entered the names of her father, Waldemar the Great, King of Denmark, of her mother, Queen Sophia, and of the Comtesse Eleanore de Vermandois, her faithful friend during long years of trial, thus proving unquestionably her ownership of this precious volume. She has, moreover, entered in it the date 1214, the year in which she was recognised as Queen of France. On the last page appears the following entry: “Ce psaultier fut de Saint Loys,” showing that the MS. subsequently came into the possession of St. Louis, King of France, himself. In Charles V’s Inventory, dated 1380, it is described as “mon gros psaultier, nommé le Psaultier St. Loys, très richement enlumyne d’or et d’ancien ymages,” and we learn that in 1428 it was preserved in the Château of Vincennes. From that time, however, it disappeared for nearly two hundred years until it was found in England by Pierre de Bellièvre, who secured it and presented it in 1649 to Henri de Mesmes. The miniatures are similar in style to those found in English MSS. of the thirteenth century; the colours are luminous, black and blue being predominant, and the whole work is painted on a gold ground. The initial letters and the decorative caligraphy show skilful technique and were evidently designed at the period of which Dante speaks as “L’onor di quell’arte ch’alluminare è chiamata in Parisi.”[32] It is very probable that this Psalter of Queen Ingeburge[33] served as the model for many other illuminated manuscripts.
Another noteworthy royal MS. acquired by the Duc d’Aumale which is of special importance is the Breviary of Jeanne d’Evreux. Amid the delicate decorations of the border around the illuminated text may be seen the coats-of-arms of France, Navarre, and Evreux; and it contains no less than one hundred and fourteen miniatures in grisaille upon coloured and gold backgrounds. The Gothic attitudes and graceful figures recall the style of Jean Pucelle, which, dating from the years 1327-1350, had been introduced into Paris before the coming of Northern realism.
Jeanne d’Evreux, wife of Charles IV, was well known as a connoisseur in illuminated books, and this exquisite work of art passed to Charles V, by whom it was kept at Vincennes in a coffer along with the Breviary of Belleville.
The small Book of Hours belonging to M. Maurice de Rothschild (published in facsimile by Count Delisle), the Missal of St. Denis in the Victoria and Albert Museum, the Book of Hours designed for Jeanne de France, Queen of Navarre, in the Yates Thomson Collection, form a group of beautiful codices which have rightly been compared with this MS. of Queen Jeanne d’Evreux.
Plate XXX.