Man asking forgiveness and St Michael slaying a demon from the Coëtivy Hours

Dunois Master, attributed to

Folio with three-quarter page miniature from a book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450) on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457). Removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. A prayer to the son of God concludes on the verso, illuminated in the margins with a pheasant and an angel impaling a dragon. On the verso, beneath rubrics in blue, a prayer to Jesus Christ opens with the illuminated initial 'L' (Lux vera mundi domine ihesu christe doce me quid) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts a man in a pit praying to God, and St Michael the Archangel slaying a demon. Michael pushes the demon back into hell through a fissure. The man, naked to the waist as a sign of humility, is aided out of a crevasse by another angel. The man’s scroll asks for God to hear him (exaudi me). The presence of the archangel is reminiscent of the miniature on f.141, where he is presented alongside Prigent de Coëtivy. This association suggesting the figure here also represents the patron of this manuscript.