same painter “sent from Blois to Tours, to procure certain matters for the accouchment of Madame the Duchess;” or again, “from Blois to Romorantin, to inquire after Madame d’Angoulesme, who was reported to be very unwell.”
Certain artists, however, who then took the modest name of illuminators, lived entirely by their profession; working at tableaux benoîts (blessed pictures), or popular paintings, which were sold at the church-doors. Others, again, were paid assistants of the recognised painters to princes or nobles; and the anonymous was quite naturally imposed upon them by their subordinate position, if not by the simple modesty which was for a long time the accompaniment of talent. In the fourteenth century the study of miniatures is peculiarly interesting, on account of the scenes of public and private life, of manners and customs, we find reproduced in them. Portraits after life, d’après le vif, as they were called in those days, made their appearance; and caricature, at all times so powerful in France, already began to show itself with a daring which, occupying itself with the clergy, women, and chivalry, stopped only before the prestige of royalty.
The miniatures of a French manuscript, dated 1313 (Imperial Library, Paris, No. 8,504, F. L.), deserve to be mentioned, especially on account of the various subjects they represent; for, besides the ceremony of the reception of the King of Navarre into the order of chivalry, we see in it philosophers discussing, judges administering the law, various scenes of conjugal life, singers accompanying themselves on divers instruments of music, villagers engaged in the labours of country life, &c. We must mention also a manuscript of the “Roman de Fauvel,” in which is especially prominent the very original scene of a popular concert of rough music, by masked performers, given, according to an old custom, to a widow who had married a second time ([Fig. 365]).
The period during which Charles V. occupied the throne of France is one of those that produced the finest specimens of manuscript-painting. This monarch, the founder of the Royal Library, was an admirer of illustrated books, and had accumulated, at great cost, a large collection in the great tower of the Louvre. A royal prince, whom we have already mentioned as being excessively devoted to artistic luxuries, was the rival of Charles V. in this respect: this was his brother, the Duke Jean de Berry, who devoted enormous sums to the purchase and production of manuscripts.
Fig. 366.—Border taken from a Prayer-book belonging to Louis of France, Duke of Anjou, King of Naples, of Sicily, and of Jerusalem. (Fourteenth Century.)
Fig. 367.—Miniature taken from “Les Femmes Illustres,” translated from Boccacio. (Imperial Library, Paris.)
Even under Charles VI. this impulse did not abate, and the art of painting manuscripts was never in a more flourishing condition. The border taken from the “Livre d’Heures,” or prayer-book, of the Duke d’Anjou, uncle of the king ([Fig. 366]), is an example of this. We might mention, as specimens of illustrated works of this period, the book of the “Demandes et Réponses,” by Peter Salmon, a manuscript executed for the king, and ornamented with exquisite miniatures, in which all the characters are true historical portraits, beautifully finished. Nevertheless, the masterpieces of the French school at this period show themselves in the miniatures of two translations of Boccacio’s “De Claris Mulieribus” (“Beautiful Women”) ([Fig. 367]).
