Beschreibung:

Details
Jean Miélot (d.1472) (translator); Pierre Garnier (active 1470-1490) (Artist)
Tarquin, Tanaquil and the eagle; The Rape and Suicide of Lucretia; two miniatures from the Romuléon, illuminated manuscript on vellum [eastern France, c. 1480]
Two engaging miniatures from an imposing copy of the Romuléon, a work drawn from several classical and Christian authors that tells the story of Rome and the Romans from the time of Romulus and Remus to Constantine the Great.
140 x 100mm and 137 x 98mm. The first miniature opening Book 1, Ch. XXI, with the rubric 'Le xxie chapitre Titus Livius', and depicting the legend of Tarquin, the fifth King of Rome, and his wife Tanaquil, in which on his arrival in Rome in a chariot, an eagle took his cap, flew away and then returned it back upon his head. Tanaquil, who was skilled in prophecy, interpreted this as an omen of his future greatness. The second miniature opening Book 1. Ch. XXVIII, with the rubric 'Le xxviiie chap[itr]e Titus Livius', and depicting the rape and suicide of Lucretia, with Sextus Tarquinius, son of Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, threatening a naked Lucretia sitting virtuously in a bed, and the same Lucretia stabbing herself in the foreground (some rubbing to both miniatures, especially to the faces, both miniatures with remnants of text on the verso, but pasted down on 19th-century paper).
Provenance:
The fragmentary parent manuscript to which these and other dispersed miniatures once belonged has been identified in Niort (Médiathèque Pierre-Moinot, Cote RESG2F), given in 1884 by Edmond-Emmanuel Arnauldet. It is the only known copy of the Romuléon that is French in origin. For this manuscript and sister detached miniatures see S. McKendrick, 'Charles the Bold and the Romuléon: Reception, Loss and Influence’, in Kunst und Kultur-Transfer zür Zeit Karls des Kühnen, eds N. Gramaccini & M. C. Schurr, 2012, pp.59-84).
The original compilation of the Romuléon, in Latin, was made by Benvenuto da Imola between 1361 and 1364, but in the 1460s, in response to the courtly taste for histories and chronicles in the vernacular, two writers independently undertook to translate the work into French (see S. McKendrick, 'The Romuléon and the MSS of Edward IV', Proceedings of the 1992 Harlaxton Symposium, 1994, pp.149-69). These miniatures illustrated the translation of Jean Miélot resident of Lille between 1453 and 1472, who was in the service of Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, from around 1448 until the duke's death in 1467. Only six complete manuscripts of Miélot's translation survive, all of them luxury volumes made in the southern Netherlands for members or friends of the Burgundian court.
Illumination:
The present miniatures are from the same manuscript as a group of fourteen cuttings sold at Christie's, 21 June 1989, lots 6-11. They were attributed to an illuminator active in Langres between 1480 and 1493 serving clients in Champagne and Lorraine (N. Reynaud in Les Manuscrits à peintures en France 1440-1520, 1993, p.376). The artist was subsequently identified as the Langres illuminator Pierre Garnier who worked at the court of René d'Anjou between 1476-1480 (J. Lauga 'Les Manuscrits liturgiques dans le diocèse de Langres à la fin du Moyen âge : les commanditaires et leurs artistes', thesis, Paris 4, Sorbonne, 2007).
Special notice
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