Master of the Beaussant Altarpiece

Previously the Master of the Paris Cœur d’Amour épris

The Crucifixion with the Virgin and John, and the symbols of the Evangelists

Written in Latin, a leaf from an Oath Book, the opening to Gospel of John, In principio erat verbum (In the Beginning was the Word)

France, Anjou, (Angers?), circa 1480

Overall dimensions, 244 x 178 mm.

Tempera, ink and gold on parchment

Price on request

This large illuminated leaf depicting the Crucifixion includes Mary and John on either side of the cross, and symbols of the Four Evangelists in roundels in all four corners. A beautifully detailed landscape and a lavishly decorated border of simulated marble and precious stones encase the scene. The painting is prefaced by the text of the Gospel according to John, In principio erat verbum. This appears in excerpt on the verso. It is likely it comes from an Oath Book for a local confraternity, where it was the opening folio.

This leaf fits neatly into a group of manuscripts associated with the patronage of René d'Anjou and his nephew Charles IV de Maine. The principal manuscript by this artist is known as the Paris copy of the Cœur d'Amour épris (BnF, MS fr. 24399). The large figures set in an opaque spatial setting, the heavy pronounced shading of their faces, the liberal use of liquid gold for the modeling, the densely saturated colors, and the preference for frames imitating marble and filled with precious stones are all typical of this artist. There is a single leaf by this Master in the Robert Lehman Collection of the Metropolitan Museum (MS 1975.1.2467) and a manuscript from which this and several other fugitive leaves originate (Blackburn, Borough Public Lib., Hart 20984).

François Avril hypothesized that this Master most likely worked in Anjou because he seems to have had access to the famous copy of the Cœur d’Amour épris painted by Barthélemy d'Eyck in the 1460’s (ÖNB, MS 2597). René d'Anjou presumably took this book with him to Provence when he retired there in the early 1470’s. Our artist’s style shares a similarity with Georges Trubert, who was enlumineur en titre for René from 1467 until the king's death in 1480 and then stayed on in Provence for another decade before moving to Lorraine. This Master was also present in the Loire Valley, most notably Angers, during a period of years working on local commissions.

In 2003, General Beaussant donated an altarpiece to the treasury of Angers Cathedral which had been present in the nearby priory of Villemoisan in Maine-et-Loire since the late 19th century. Upon the commencement of the restoration project for the 17th century painting of the Assumption of the Virgin, it was discovered that it was actually covering a much older work, a Crucifixion dating from the latter half of the 15th century. This was a spectacular discovery. French art historians recognized the artistic tendencies of the Master painter who is firmly connected to the known works associated with the Master of the Paris Cœur d'Amour épris. The painter is now renamed the Master of the Beaussant Altarpiece. Comparing the altarpiece in Angers and the present illuminated leaf, the similarities are striking. It depicts an intricately modeled Christ with his gentle meditative face and muscular body, that closely match both the altarpiece in Angers and another leaf attributed to him in the collection of the Louvre. This discovery in 2003 revealed evidence of this Master’s presence outside of Provence where he was thought to primarily work during the last quarter of the 15th century.

PROVENANCE

USA, Private Collection

LIST OF KNOWN MANUSCRIPTS AND MINIATURES

1. Trésor de Sapience (Chronicle of Baudoin d’Avesnes), containing seventy-seven miniatures, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr. 1367, Paris, France.

2. Life of Saint Francis, Bibliothèque nationale de France, NAF 28640, Paris, France.

3. Book of the Cœur d’Amour épris (Heart of Loving Love), with about seventy miniatures, c. 1480, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Fr. 24399, Paris, France.

4. Hours of Rome, Municipal Library, ms. 1356, Toulouse, France.

5. Hours of Poitiers, with nine large miniatures, François-Mitterrand Media Library, ms. 11107, Poitiers, France.

6. Leaves from a Book of Hours, now dispersed: thirty-one leaves in the Blackburn Museum and Art Gallery (Hart Collection 20984), Blackburn, United Kingdom; one leaf in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Lehman Collection, 1975.1.2467, Saint Anthony), New York, United States; and a miniature of David and Goliath formerly in the collection of Robert Forrer (1866–1947), Strasbourg, France.

7. Code of Justinian, prepared for Pierre de Laval, Archbishop of Reims, c. 1480. Survives only in fragments: 123 sheets in a private collection, France; one leaf in a private collection, Angers, France; and three miniatures in the Louvre (the Emperor Justinian, RF 54636; the Trinity, RF 54637; and a wedding scene, inv. 20696), Paris, France.

8. Statutes of the Faculty of Medicine of Angers, 1483, Departmental Archives of Maine-et-Loire, Angers, France.

9. Reliquary Cross, single sheet, Angers Museum of Fine Arts, inv. MA III R 405, Angers, France.

Panel Painting

1. Beaussant Altarpiece: Crucifixion, Pietà, and donor, painting on wood, 149 × 241 cm. Discovered beneath a later Assumption canvas dated 1699 during restoration in 2003; now in Saint-Maurice Cathedral, Angers, France.

Stained Glass

1. Crucifixion and Life of Christ, Notre-Dame, Sablé-sur-Sarthe, France.

2. Jean de Rély in prayer before a Pietà, lower part of bay 111, Saint-Maurice Cathedral, Angers, France.

3. Crucifixion with the Virgin, Saint John, Mary Magdalene, and a donor, 1521, Saint-Martin de Soulaire (now in the collections of the Angers museums), Angers, France.

LITERATURE

Avril, François and Reynaud, Nicole, Les Manuscrits à Peintures en France 1440-1520, Paris: Flammarion: Bibliothèque nationale, 1993-94, pp. 370-71, 377-380

Rose-Marie Ferré, René d'Anjou, Le Livre du Cœur d'amour épris, in Marc-Édouard Gautier (dir.), Splendeur de l'enluminure. Le roi René et les livres, Angers/Arles, Ville d'Angers/Actes Sud, 2009, pp. 416-417.

Avril, François, La Vie de saint François illustrée, Art de l’enluminure, no. 27, 2009, pp. 4–65.

Rudy, Kathryn M. Postcards on Parchment: The Social Lives of Medieval Books. Yale University Press, 2015. Chapter “Parchment Paintings for Swearing Oaths,” pp. 287–29