Experts, I believe, place the work of Jean Foucquet, in the Antiquities of the Jews, ahead of that of Jean Bourdichon (probably Foucquet’s pupil) in the Hours of Anne of Brittany; but frankly this sixteenth century manuscript at the Bibliothèque Nationale, in Paris, always yields me greater pleasure. Perhaps this is in compensation for not knowing too much! I will agree with them that the decorative borders of Foucquet are much more interesting than Bourdichon’s, for the return of the Flemish influence to French art at this time was not particularly fortunate. In the borders of the Grimani Breviary realism in reproducing flowers, vegetables, bugs, and small animal life, would seem to have been carried to the limit, but Bourdichon went the Grimani one better, and on a larger scale. The reproductions are marvelously exact, but even a beautifully painted domesticated onion, on which a dragon-fly crawls, with wing so delicately transparent that one may read the letter it seems to cover, is a curious accompaniment for the magnificently executed portraits of Anne and her patron saints in the miniature pages! Here the artist has succeeded in imparting a quality to his work that makes it appear as if done on ivory instead of vellum (see page [148]). The costumes and even the jewels are brilliant in the extreme. The floral decorations shown in the reproduction opposite are far more decorative than the vegetables, but I still object to the caterpillar and the bugs!
HOURS of ANNE of BRITTANY. French Renaissance, 16th Century
The Education of the Child Jesus by the Virgin and Saint Joseph
(Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 9474. 12 × 7½ inches)
HOURS of ANNE of BRITTANY. French Renaissance, 16th Century
Page showing Text and Marginal Decoration
(Bibl. Nat. MS. Lat. 9474. 12 × 7¼ inches)]
In 1508 there is a record that Anne of Brittany, Queen of Louis XII, made an order of payment to Bourdichon of 1050 livres tournois for his services in “richly and sumptuously historiating and illuminating a great Book of Hours for our use.” This consists of 238 leaves of vellum, 12 by 7½ inches in size. There are sixty-three full pages, including forty-nine miniatures, twelve reproductions for the various months, and a leaf containing ornaments and figures at the beginning and end of the volume. Of the text, there are some 350 pages surrounded by borders. The Italian influence shows in the architectural and sculptural decorations, just as the Flemish obtains in the borders.