Virgin enthroned beside God 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. The fifteen joys of our Lady concludes on the recto, illuminated in the margins by a butterfly, birds and supplicants in prayer emerging from flowers. On the verso, a devotion to the Virgin Mary in French opens with the illuminated initial ‘O’ (O Royne qui fustes mise et assise lassus on throne divin en vostre deuote eglise) painted with red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. It is one of a series of twenty-six prayers to the Virgin Mary in this section of the manuscript. The great many devotions and miniatures dedicated to her is rather unusual. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts the Virgin Mary as Queen of Heaven enthroned beside God. They are accompanied by red seraphim and angels playing viol and portative. They reside over the cosmos with Earth at the centre surrounded by ships in the oceans and birds in the sky.