The Martyrdom of St Maurice and his companions, historiated initial on a leaf from a Breviary, in Latin and French [France (Paris), c.1340–50]

single leaf, c.270x190mm, vellum, with a four-line HISTORIATED INITIAL, 2 columns, 28 lines, c.160x110mm, containing from the 7th reading for the feast of St Matthew (21 Sept.) and the first three of St Maurice and his companions (22 Sept.), rubrics in French, in red or underlined in red, two-line initials with slender borders, the script and decoration in very fine condition with no noticeable losses, the fore-edge with two short cuts, the edges with areas of slight darkening 

This leaf comes from a luxury Breviary of Dominican Use, made in Paris after 1323 (Thomas Aquinas is included as a saint). About 25 leaves were known to us, including four bifolia in the Comites Latentes collection, Geneva; and 10 leaves at the Lilly Library, Bloomington (see de Ricci, Census, I, p.624 no.44 citing several others). A bifolium with the end of the feast of Maurice, which begins on the present leaf, is in an English private collection. François Avril kindly draws our attention to about 85 more leaves divided between Besançon (Bibl. mun., ms. 55), Lyon (Bibl. mun., ms. 6020), and London (BL, Egerton 3035). The BL portion was owned by John Ruskin (d. 1900).

The style is that of a follower of JEAN PUCELLE who was one of the most outstanding Parisian illuminators of the early 14th century. A Bible Moralisée made for Jean le Bon, King of France from 1350 until his death in 1364, dates from the 1340s and was illuminated by no less than 15 artists working in Pucelle's style (Paris, BnF, fr.167; see F. Avril, 'Un chef-d'œuvre de l'enluminure sous le règne de Jean le Bon', Monuments et mémoires de la Fondation Eugène Piot, 58, 1972, pp. 91-125).