ANNEX A
Case 3 (2016-17)
Reviewing Committee on the Export of Works of Art and Objects of
Cultural Interest (RCEWA)
Statement of
Expert Adviser to the Secretary of State
that
Case 3 (2016-17): Book of Hours in enamelled gold binding
Meets Waverley criteria two and three
Executive Summary
1. Brief Description of the item
This richly decorated book retains its original metalwork binding. Its size—85 x 65 mm—
indicates that it was designed for personal use. The jewelled binding is made of enamelled
gold set with cornelian intaglios and cameos, framed with rubies, turquoises and a
tourmaline. The intaglios may be the work of Matteo del Nassaro of Verona, who worked in
Paris from 1517 to 1547, and the binding itself the work of other Italian craftsmen connected
to the French court. Inside is an illuminated parchment Book of Hours, painted with twenty
devotional images accompanying the prayers to be said at different hours of the day. The
book is dated 1532 (three times) and was made probably in Paris.
Most of the painting was completed by the ‘1520s Hours Workshop’, book artists who
collaborated on high quality illuminated manuscripts mainly for royal and aristocratic
patrons. This manuscript is the smallest of the twenty or so richly illuminated manuscripts
produced by this atelier between 1524 and the 1540s. Another contribution was made by an
artist as yet unidentified, whose distinctive style may indicate that he was primarily a panel
rather than a book painter. A separate piece of metalwork, currently described as a marker, is
made of carved agate, set in gold. Both book and marker are in remarkable condition.
2. Context
Shortly after it was made the book was purchased by François I (b. 1494, d. 1547), whose
court was a centre of art and learning. The manuscript subsequently passed, perhaps as a gift,
to his sister Marguerite d’Angoulême (b. 1492, d. 1549), a writer and patron in her own right.
Thereafter it was owned by Henri IV (b. 1553, d. 1610), and Cardinal Mazarin (b.1602, d.
1661). After the book came to England, it entered the renowned collections of Horace
Walpole, Dr Richard Mead and Alfred de Rothschild. It was purchased by the applicant at
Viscount Rothermere’s sale, Sotheby’s, 26 March 1942. It was exhibited in an exhibition on
Strawberry Hill at the Yale Center for British Art and the Victoria and Albert Museum in
2009-2010.
3. Waverly criteria
I consider the manuscript to meet the second and third Waverley criteria.
Jewelled books from any period are extremely rare, as they are vulnerable to removal and
reuse. This Book of Hours, with its original metal cover studded with jewels and precious
stones, is an extraordinary survival, unique in sixteenth-century art. Taken together with the
high quality painting inside the book—which may have been designed in tandem with the
binding—it is a masterful work of outstanding artistic significance.
The manuscript is also of outstanding research value to art, book and jewellery historians, and
more broadly as an important witness of the splendours of the Renaissance French court and
the continuing importance of personal piety and devotion represented in handmade books
generations after the advent of printing. Moreover, because of the presence of an artist whose
compositions are on a scale akin to monumental painting, this largely unexamined manuscript
has the potential to rewrite the history of the 1520s Hours atelier and our understanding of
artistic practice in sixteenth-century France.
Detailed Case
1. Detailed description of the item if more in Executive summary, and any comments.
The volume is a masterwork of French Renaissance art. Worthy of royal possession, it
showcases the highest quality work of artists skilled in various media and of widely differing
origins. Its metalwork covers and the associated marker are the products of Italian craftsmen.
Its written and illuminated contents were executed by a manuscript atelier with strong artistic
links to the Netherlands.
The intaglio front cover depicts Christ on the cross flanked by St Francis of Assisi and St
Jerome. Both figures look upwards, anguished, towards Christ. St Francis receives the
stigmata directly from Christ, while St Jerome holds a stone with which to scourge himself.
Images of Saint Francis receiving the stigmata (like that by Giotto in the Louvre) typically
depict the saint with a vision of a winged, crucified Christ in the sky. Here the composition is
tighter; the connection between the saint and his Redeemer is closer. There may be an
allusion to the patronage of François I in the representation of Saint Francis (the king’s
saintly namesake). Above and below the intaglio white enamelwork panels contain a Latin
inscription in gold, drawn from the Office of the Dead, which directs the viewer to adore the
image of the crucified Christ.
The back cover features the Virgin and Child enthroned beneath an elaborate cupola on a
monumental altar and flanked by St Catherine of Alexandria and St Barbara, each holding a
martyr’s palm. Above and below two further white enamel panels bear a Latin prayer to the
Virgin asking for protection from evil at the hour of death. Whereas the front cover presents
an image of penitence, the back offers the hope of redemptive intercession.
These intaglios may be the work of Matteo del Nassaro of Verona (fl. in Paris 1517-47). They
certainly draw heavily on Italian artistic forms and compositions. The intaglio image of the
Virgin and Child, for example, bears comparison with the seals of Cardinals Egidio da
Viterbo and Silvio Passerini attributed to the goldsmith Lautizio da Perugia (fl. 1511-27). The
figure of St Catherine is apparently also similar to that on a lead plaquette attributed to
Valerio Belli (b. 1468, d. 1546). The cameo putti that frame the intaglio covers echo the putti
who frame the Pentecost image within the manuscript in a way that suggests that the artwork
and metalwork may have been designed in tandem.
Opening the covers reveals a series of painted images that rival the jewelled cover in their
quality or originality. Seventeen large miniatures and three smaller ones illustrate the
devotional texts of the Book of Hours: St John the Evangelist (Gospel extract); eight scenes
from the life of the Virgin and angels holding a shield (Hours of the Virgin); a penitent David
and two depictions of Bathsheba (Penitential Psalms); Death as a skeleton and an unidentified
Old Testament scene (Office of the Dead); Christ carrying the Cross and the Crucifixion
(Hours of the Cross); Pentecost and Holy Spirit (Hours of the Holy Spirit); and Trinity
(Suffrages). Most of the large miniatures are enclosed in fictive Renaissance-style
architectural frames. Others, including the three smaller miniatures, are set in ‘scatter’
borders with colourful flowers, plants and insects.
2. Detailed explanation of the outstanding significance of the item
The manuscript is of outstanding significance for research in art history, the history of the
book, painting, and jewellery design in sixteenth-century France. As noted above, jewelled
bindings are extremely rare, as are cameo and intaglio bindings. Where they do survive,
cameos and intaglios in bindings often appear in the shape of appendages. However, here the
intaglio panels of the upper and lower covers are the central substance of the binding. The
craftsmanship evident in their production would make them covetable objects in themselves.
Their appearance in this binding, amongst high quality gold enamel-work and as the surround
to a manuscript of great importance in its own right, makes this volume very rare indeed.
Gold, Renaissance bindings that do survive are often ‘girdle-books’, books intended to be
worn hung from a belt – an object somewhere between a piece of jewellery and a book. The
present Hours have no traces of loops for attachment, making it a niche type of manuscript in
an already niche category of books.
Several key aspects of the book’s genesis remain to be determined. As noted above, the
manuscript is securely dated to 1532, yet the style of the illumination suggests that there were
two campaigns (or perhaps two separate contributions) to complete the painting. That the
book was paid for by the King six years later raises the possibility that it was intended as a
royal gift either from its inception or at some point in its production. The very small size of
the book and the manifest adjustments to larger scale compositions employed elsewhere by
the 1520s Workshop appear to have been determined by the dimensions of the intaglios and
to reflect an early decision that they were to form a prominent feature of the volume.
The formation, influence and composition of the illuminators have been the subject of much
scholarly research. Initially identified as the work of the Master of the Getty Epistles (after
the eponymous manuscript now at the J. Paul Getty Museum) and assistants, the muscular
figures, dynamic poses, sophisticated spatial effects and arresting colour combinations
produced by this atelier became known as hallmarks of the so-called 1520s Workshop. More
recently, attention has focused on the Antwerp painter Noël Bellemare as a key figure in
introducing these Mannerist elements into French painting. Bellemare is documented as
working for François I at Fontainebleau in the 1540s. Because of the relationship and
interplay between the original metalwork binding and the miniature painting, the fixed date
and the known connection to François I, this Book of Hours constitutes a critical element in
the reassessment of the 1520s Workshop, the possible involvement of Bellemare and the
impact of monumental and Netherlandish painting in French artistic centres.
25 April 2016