St Michael Battling Satan and Leading a Dead Man’s Soul to Heaven, large historiated initial on a leaf from a Book of Hours, in Latin [France (Paris), c.1440-50]

single leaf, 171x122mm, vellum, with a historiated initial ‘D’ for the Office of the Dead, 17 lines, 100x62mm, slightly stained toward the edges, border slightly rubbed, overall in fine condition, framed

The illumination is a fine work by the DUNOIS MASTER, once known as the principal associate of the Bedford Master, who was named after a Book of Hours made for Jean de Dunois (London, BL, Yates Thompson 3). It is possible that the Bedford Master was the Alsatian artist Haincelin of Hagenau, recorded in Paris from 1403 to 1424, while the Dunois Master may have been his son Jean Haincelin who is mentioned in documents between 1438 and 1449. The iconography for the Office of the Dead is rich and varied (see also lot 29). The astonishing scene here prominently features St Michael battling Satan and leading the soul of a dead man to heaven. The elegant figure of the archangel is taken from the miniature with the Last Judgment in the Dunois Hours (f.32v; see the British Library’s Online Catalogue of Illuminated Manuscripts) where St Michael steps out of the miniature to push the damned into the gaping mouth of hell situated below the text. The quality of the illumination, the precise script and the fine border demonstrate that this must have been a high-ranking commission. Nine other leaves have been identified: three were acquired by the Museum of Art, Princeton, in 1938 (y1938-46 a-c); one was temporarily on deposit at Boston University (see Manuscripts Sacred and Secular, 1985, no.95); three are in a private collection in New York; one was sold at Christie’s, 19 November 2003, part of lot 10; one more is the following lot. Among these are calendar leaves that contain some distinctively English entries, notably the Translation of King Edward (13 Oct., in gold), the Translation of St Cuthbert (4 Sept.), and St Edith (16 Sept.) which suggests that the manuscript was made for an English patron during the English occupation at the end of the Hundred Years' War.