Book of Hours Illuminated by the Rohan Master
Artist/Maker
DatesMade: Between c. 1415 and 1425
Dimensionsh x w: Mått 17,8 x 12 cm
Inventory numberNMB 1906
AcqusitionPurchase 1964
Other titlesInventory title (sv): Maria och Elisabeths möte Title (en): Book of Hours Illuminated by the Rohan Master Alternative title: Horae
DescriptionDescription: NMB 1906 Leaf from a Book of Hours illuminated by the Rohan Master. [Paris or Angers, c.1415-1420] Catalogue raisonné: NMB 1906 Leaf from a Book of Hours illuminated by the Rohan Master. [Paris or Angers, c.1415-1420] Physical Description MATERIAL: Gouache and gold on parchment. DIMENSIONS: 178 × 120 mm. NUMBER OF LEAVES: 1. FOLIATION: 44 RULING: 4 faint red lined lines of text on recto and 15 on verso. LANGUAGE: Latin. SCRIPT: Gothic textura. RUBRICATION: Blue and gold rubrics. Text Hours of the Virgin at Lauds. Deus in adiutorium meum intende. Domine ad adiuvandum me festina. (Incline unto my aid O God. O Lord make haste to help me.) Sister leaves 1. Some cuttings in private hands. Decoration The image shown in the cutting of NMB 1906 is of the scene of The Visitation taken from the Gospel of Luke. In this scene Mary, who is with child, visits her cousin Elizabeth who is pregnant with John the Baptist. Elizabeth touches Mary’s stomach and cries out ‘Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.’ Mary responds with the prayer known as the Magnificat ‘My soul doth magnify the Lord. And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour’. To this prayer is added the Gloria Patria, which is found on the verso of NMB 1906. In the illumination, Mary and Elizabeth are shown in a rocky landscape with a vivid blue sky. There are two trees on top of the rocks, one to the left and one to the right, they frame the standing figure of Mary. Coming from the sky are rays of golden light, this is the light from the Holy Ghost. This can be seen in the passage of Luke 1:41 ‘And it came to pass that when Elizabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the infant leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Ghost.’ Mary stands to the left of this scene. She wears a blue dress with gold patterns and has a long cream robe with the same patterning over the top. Mary is bare headed with long unbound golden hair which indicates her as a virgin. Surrounding her head is a halo of gold. Elizabeth, in contrast to Mary, is kneeling. She is wearing a red dress with a blue robe, both of which have the same pattern as Mary’s clothes. Elizabeth wears a white veil that indicates that she is an older woman, and her pregnancy is not divine in nature. Elizabeth also has a golden halo and reaches her hand to touch Mary’s stomach, where the unborn Christ is lying. Both women look at each other with loving gazes. Provenance Parent volume 1. Auction catalogue from C. G. Boerner in Leipzig from the 28th of November 1912 has the manuscript as lot number 7. Present leaf 1. As separate leaf along with 16 other illuminations in the sale of G. Aubry in Paris in 1937. 2. Purchased in 1964 for the Nationalmuseum from Georges Ryaux in Paris. Exhibited 1. Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter, December 1987-March 1988. Commentary The manuscript was illuminated by the so-called Rohan Master. This artist is most famously known for illuminations in the manuscript the Grandes Heures de Rohan made in c.1431 for Yolanda of Aragon, Duchess of Anjou. The Rohan Master started his career in Troyes and then was in Paris c.1415-1420 before he went to the Angevin ducal court in Angers (Hamburger et. al. 2016). Nordenfalk (1979) pointed out that the Hours are for the Use of Paris so would suggest that the NMB 1906 manuscript may date to the Parisian period of the Rohan Master. Recent scholarship has shown that the Rohan Master could actually be referred to the Rohan Master(s) and that it is a part of a Rohan Style of art (Panayotova 2014). In this case it is best to refer to NMB 1906 as being made in the workshop of the Rohan Master, maybe in Paris c.1415-1420. NMB 1906 is later found in an auction catalogue from C. G. Boerner in Leipzig dated the 28th of November 1912 as lot number 7. At this point it was still part of an intact manuscript. It next appears as a separate cutting along with 16 other illuminations from the manuscript in the sale of G. Aubry in Paris in 1937. It may have been brought from this sale by Georges Ryaux. Bibliography Abel, Ulf, and Nils Göran Hökby (eds.), Gyllene böcker. Nyförvärv och nyupptäckter (Stockholm: Nationalmuseum, 1987), no. 50, pp. 50. Binski, Paul and Stella Panayotova (eds.), The Cambridge Illuminations: Ten Centuries of Book Production in the Medieval West (London; Turnhout, 2005), no. 88, pp. 202–204. Catalogue de Dessins Anciens Œuvres des Maitres des XV, XVI, XVIII et XIX Siècles (Paris, Hôtel Drouot, 22nd February 1937), p. 6. Hindman, Sandra, Medieval and Renaissance Miniature Painting (Akron: Bruce Ferrini Rare Books & London: Sam Fogg Rare Books & Manuscripts, 1988), pp. 49, 122. Hamburger, Jeffrey F., William P. Stoneman, Anne-Marie Eze, Lisa Fagin Davis & Nancy Netzer (eds.), Beyond Words: Illuminated Manuscripts in Boston Collections (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2016), no. 103, pp. 136-137. Manuscripte und Miniaturen des XII. bis XVI. Jahrhunderts: Handzeichnungen des XV. bis XVII. Jahrhunderts (Leipzig: C. G. Boerner, 1912), pp. 6-7. Meiss, Millard, French Painting in the Time of Jean de Berry: The Limbourgs and their Contemporaries (New York, George Braziller Inc., 1974), p. 404. Nordenfalk, Carl, Bokmålningar från medeltid och renässans i Nationalmusei samlingar (Stockholm: Rabén & Sjögren, 1979), no. 27, pp. 102-103. Panayotova, Stella, ‘The Rohan Masters: Collaboration and Experimentation in the Hours of Isabella Stuart’ in Manuscripta Illuminata: Approaches to Understanding Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, ed. by Colum Hourihane (Princeton: Princeton University Press and Penn State University Press, 2014), pp. 14-46. Porcher, Jean, The Rohan Book of Hours (New York, Thomas Yoseloff, 1959). Reuterswärd, Patrik, Jesu liv i konsten (Stockholm, Nationalmuseum, 1973), pp. 30, 32. Sandgren, Eva Lindqvist, Illuminated Manuscripts in Swedish Collections, https://www.alvin-portal.org/alvin/resultList.jsf?dswid=7830&p=1&searchType=EXTENDED&sortString=creationYear_sort_asc&noOfRows=10&af=%5B%22ARCHIVE_ORG_ID_facet%3A67%22%5D&query=&aq=%5B%5B%7B%22HOST%22%3A%22alvin-record%3A471052%22%7D%5D%5D&aqe=%5B%5D Research project 2022-2023, Illuminated Manuscript, Christian Etheridge, Art Historian.
Collection
Geographical origin
MaterialParchment