Exhibition at Chester Beatty Library focuses on a masterpiece of fifteenth-century illumination

11 mars 2018

Exhibition at Chester Beatty Library focuses on a masterpiece of fifteenth-century illumination

DUBLIN.- A masterpiece of fifteenth-century illumination, the Coëtivy Hours is one of the Treasures of the Library’s Western Collection. To celebrate the 50th-anniversary of Chester Beatty’s Gift to the Irish Nation, the Library is presenting a special exhibition focusing on a manuscript given by Edith Beatty to her husband. It was produced in Paris (1443-1445) for Prigent de Coëtivy, bibliophile and Admiral of France, to mark the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais. The manuscript is made from parchment and comprises 364 folios, each illuminated with decorative borders. In addition, it includes 148 three-quarter page miniatures painted in demi-grisaille.

Vibrant blues, reds and greens and an abundance of gold make each page pop and sparkle. You’ll wonder at the imagination of the medieval mind as you look closer at the inhabitants of the borders: a symphony of birds, insects and animals, saints, supplicants and sinners and divine beings, monstrous hybrids and mythological creatures each interacting with or active within the foliate borders of recognisable flowers, scrolling acanthus and golden vine-leaves. The pages are as vibrant today as they were nearly 600 years ago.

Books of Hours are a collection of prayers intended for private use. Many are richly illuminated. Although described as the medieval ‘best seller’ due to the sheer number of surviving examples, the quality of execution varies drastically. The patron dictated the number of miniatures and the level of decoration, while the style and palette were determined by the abilities of the workshop and availability of materials; no two books are identical.

By the mid-fourteenth century Paris was a major centre of manuscript production, and this continued even during the English occupation of the city in 1420-36. After Paris was recaptured by the French, the same artists seem to have been employed by members of the French nobility, including Jean de Dunois and Prigent de Coëtivy. In the Coëvity Hours, as this chance to peak between its covers reveals, the workshop of the Dunois Master, to whom it has been attributed, produced one of the most beautifully and abundantly illuminated manuscripts of the mid-fifteenth century.

The story of how the Coëtivy Hours came into the Library’s collection exemplifies the collecting partnership between Chester and Edith Beatty, highlighting their discriminatory taste and inimitable flair for recognising and acquiring the exceptional. Edith purchased the Coëtivy Hours in 1919 from another avid collector, Henry Yates Thompson, and presented it to her husband as an anniversary gift. Her inscription on the fly-leaf reads: ‘To A. Chester Beatty, from his loving wife, Edith’.

At Beatty’s request, all but four of the miniatures were removed from the manuscript. For Beatty this had one clear purpose: ‘why shouldn’t people who are interested … look at them as closely as they want and study them properly?’ This exhibition will allow you to do just that, showcasing both the bound manuscript and all 144 mounted miniatures.