13. Jean Fouquet

The artist Jean Fouquet, who was active in Tours between 1450 and 1480, is considered the greatest French painter of the fifteenth century. He made several panel paintings, while ten manuscripts are known of which he executed the decoration either in full or, in most cases, only in part. Thus he supplied only six miniatures (on either side of three leaves) for the small Book of Hours, of which two parts are now in the Koninklijke Bibliotheek and one in the J.Paul Getty Museum in Malibu. The representation of the Madonna with the Christ child is considered one of the undisputed masterpieces of the painter's oeuvre. It has an unparalleled atmosphere of tenderness and intimacy, evoked by the overhanging veil of the Virgin Mary also partly covering the child's head. Equally noteworthy is the way in which the child puts his little hand on the edge of the columbine-decorated border, a trompe-l'oeil which creates the illusion of space between figures and border. The Getty part contains two miniatures in which the patron, Simon de Varie, a finance official under the French Kings Charles VII and Louis XI, is depicted kneeling before the enthroned Virgin and child. The decoration of the actual Book of Hours, consisting of no fewer than 80 miniatures with decorated borders, was executed by two Paris artists, Master François and the Master of the Dunois Book of Hours. These artists were specialised in ‘little white books’, small-scale Books of Hours with white as their predominant colour. The Book of Hours of Simon de Varie also belongs to this group, as can be seen from the page opposite the representation of the Virgin Mary. In the garments of Christ walking upon the sea and of the three apostles in the miniature, as well as in the foliage of the border decoration, white is the dominating colour.

The Book of Hours was divided into three parts by a seventeenth-century owner, Philippe de Béthune. One part entered the Koninklijke Bibliotheek in 1816 as part of the collections of the stadholders; the second part, with the portrait of the Virgin, was bought in 1890 from the Frankfurt antiquarian bookseller J. Baer. The third part surfaced in California in 1985 and was purchased by the J.Paul Getty Museum.

Literature

• F. Avril, 'Le destinaire des heures vie à mon desir: Simon de Varie', in: Revue de l'art 67 (1985), p. 29-40
• J.H. Marrow, 'Miniatures inédites de Jean Fouquet: Les heures de Simon de Varie', in: Revue de l'art 67 (1985), p. 3-28
• De verluchte handschriften en incunabelen van de Koninklijke Bibliotheek. 's-Gravenhage 1985, no. 76-77 
• F. Avril et N. Reynaud. Les manuscripts à peintures en France 1440-1520. Parijs 1993, no. 69
• James H. Marrow. The Hours of Simon de Varie. Malibu, London 1994.