Introduction
Two detached leaves of vellum can sometimes preserve the memory of an entire lost illuminated manuscript. The present Saint Catherine of Alexandria and its accompanying text leaf are such survivors: painted in Tours around 1470–1475 by the Master of Jean Charpentier, they were both detached from their original manuscript, preserved apart, misread and then re-identified. These illuminated leaves now open a window onto a much larger story.
Their importance lies not only in their artistic beauty, but also in the intriguing history they allow us to reconstruct. The two illuminated leaves at hand originate from a Breviary commissioned for the Abbey of Saint-Julien de Tours, later dismembered, whose fragments and sister leaves are now dispersed across Europe, North America, and Asia. Like other medieval manuscript fragments, these leaves are not isolated curiosities: they are witnesses of a now lost book, fragments of a liturgical world, and pieces of a scholarly puzzle still being patiently reassembled. This Breviary was painted by the young Master of Jean Charpentier and is the artist’s earliest known work; painted in Tours c. 1470-1475, the historiated initial of Saint Catherine shows great proximity with the art of Jean Fouquet, undoubtedly the most important French artist from the 15th century.
Commentary
The Master of Jean Charpentier is one of those artists whose identity remains hidden, yet whose hand has gradually emerged through connoisseurship. In 1976, manuscripts specialist François Avril attributed eight illuminated works to an artist whom he considered to have been trained in the circle of Jean Fouquet. In 1993, Nicole Reynaud gave this anonymous illuminator the nickname by which he is now known: the Master of Jean Charpentier, after the Book of Hours painted around 1480–1485 for Jean Charpentier, notary and secretary to King Louis XII and later mayor of Angers, now preserved in Angers (Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2048; ill. 1.). Trained in Tours during the mid-15th century in the circle of Jean Fouquet, the Master of Jean Charpentier had privileged access to the art of the most talented painter of France. Marked by the refinement and the elegance of Jean Fouquet, the Master of Jean Charpentier’s brushstroke appears, during his early phase, more delicate, less heavy, with more elongated figures; in this early period, he painted the Lamentations de Saint Bernard for Jacques d’Armagnac, Duke of Nemours (Paris, BnF, ms. fr. 916). Toward the end of his career, his style became more massive and closer to that of Jean Bourdichon; during the 1480s–1490s, he painted the Hours of Philippe de Commynes, advisor and chamberlain to King Louis XI, now in the British Library (Harley 2863). The Bréviaire de Saint-Julien de Tours, datable to c. 1470–1475, therefore stands at the head of the artist’s chronology and helps us understand the young Master of Jean Charpentier at the moment when his art was still closest to the brilliance of Fouquet.
ill. 1. Master of Jean Charpentier, Pietà, c. 1480-1485. Hours of Jean Charpentier. Angers, Bibliothèque municipale, ms. 2048.
Both leaves are written in Latin, in a particularly elegant Gothic textualis in brown ink, with rubrics in red, on two columns of thirty lines each. The leaf with Saint Catherine contains the beginning of a prayer to one of the Middle Ages’ most powerful female saints (Saint Catherine): “Gloriose Virginis et martiris S. Katharine […]”, while the accompanying text leaf preserves part of a prayer to Saint Julian: “de miraculis beati Juliani egregii martiris […]”. The illumination at hand is contained within a six-line historiated initial “G” painted in blue with silver ornaments and on a gold frame. Within this small letter, Saint Catherine appears in gold camaïeu on a mauve background, surrounded by illuminated borders of black rinceaux, ivy leaves, blue and yellow acanthus, and floral decoration in blue, yellow, violet, mauve, and green (ill. 2.). The accompanying text leaf, though without a historiated miniature, is also richly articulated by decorated initials, including a five-line “M” in blue with silver ornaments and a light mauve ground decorated with golden scrolls.
ill. 2. Master of Jean Charpentier, Saint Catherine of Alexandria, illuminated leaf from the Bréviaire de Saint-Julien de Tours, c. 1470-1475.
The term camaïeu refers to a monochromatic technique using a single color. In the present leaf, the artist transforms this principle into camaïeu d’or: gold becomes not merely an ornament, but the principal language of the figure. In a space no larger than an initial, the painter creates a saintly presence through gold, mauve, and line. Saint Catherine’s image is not theatrical, but concentrated; not expansive, but precious. The delicacy with which gold is applied to depict the female saint recalls the historiated initials of the celebrated Hours of Étienne Chevalier painted by Jean Fouquet, a now dismembered Book of Hours (most leaves are now preserved at the Musée Condé in Chantilly; ill. 3.) which profoundly renewed the art of illuminating Books of Hours and marks the peak of the painter’s art.
ill. 3. Jean Fouquet, Saint Appoline, illuminated leaf from the Hours of Étienne Chevalier, 1452-1460. Chantilly, Musée Condé.
The original manuscript was commissioned around 1470–1475 by the Abbey of Saint-Julien de Tours (ill. 4.), where it is recorded in 1552 (Catalogue des manuscrits de Saint-Julien de Tours, Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, ms. nouv. acq. lat. 137). By the end of the 18th century or beginning of the 19th century, fragments of the manuscript appear in Sweden: the psalter was owned by Baron Carl Göran Bonde (today held in Örebro, Brevens bruk, private collection; apparently lost), while the calendar and temporal were held by the mathematician Christian Gissel Berlin (now preserved in Lund, Universitetsbibliotek, Med. Hand. 38). This fragment contains a handwritten note, most probably from the 17th century, showing that the Breviary was still associated with the Abbey of Saint-Julien, and another 17th century inscription - “faict par moy Christophle G[er]ault (?) / Commendement faict à Monsieur le lieutenant sivil [et] criminel / Iacque” - may provide a clue to its departure from the abbey.
ill. 4. Tours, View of the abbey.
The sister leaves are all extracted from the Sanctoral section of the Breviary and all contain historiated initials of similar size and composition to the present Saint Catherine. These leaves are now preserved in private or public collections or institutions across the world. The page showing the Meeting at the golden gate is now preserved at the Williams College Museum, Williamstown (79.10); the folio depicting Christ Resurrected is held in Keio (University of Keio, collection Matsuda, ms. 130); the leaf with Saint Julian of Brioude is kept in a private collection; the leaf with the Annunciation appeared at auction (London, Sotheby’s, June 6, 2000, lot 20); and the folio depicting the Presentation to the Temple, from the collection of Sion Segre Amar, is deposited in Basel, Universitätsbibliothek (depositum des Historischen Museums Basel, Comites Latentes CL 236; ill. 5.). The attribution history of these leaves is also essential to their story. In the past, the Saint Catherine was catalogued as by a “follower of Jean Fouquet”. This earlier classification is understandable, for the miniature’s quality and its Fouquet-like refinement place it close to the orbit of Jean Fouquet. Yet its recognition as a work by the Master of Jean Charpentier - published in scientific literature - gives the leaf a precise identity: not merely a follower’s homage to Jean Fouquet, but an early and unusually delicate work by one of the great illuminators shaped by Jean Fouquet’s legacy.
ill. 5. Master of Jean Charpentier, Presentation to the Temple, illuminated leaf from the Bréviaire de Saint-Julien de Tours, c. 1470-1475. Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, depositum des Historischen Museums Basel, Comites Latentes CL 236).
The two illuminated leaves at hand are rich with multiple layers: they witness the tumultuous history of a Breviary commissioned by the Abbey of Tours as a living liturgical object, made for repeated reading, chanting, and prayer. They witness the art of the young Master of Jean Charpentier as a worthy disciple of Jean Fouquet. They witness the art of collecting as a way to preserve the past.
