St Matthew 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. Beneath rubrics in blue, a prayer to Matthew the Apostle opens with the illuminated initial ‘D’ (Dilecti deo et hominibus sancti evangeliste) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament (most of the gold is lost). It is one of an unusually large series of forty-seven suffrages, or short prayers to the saints, arranged hierarchically. The section opens with a number of prefatory prayers, followed by the Apostles, Martyrs, Confessors and Virgins. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts St Matthew holding a sword, a symbol of his alleged beheading. He also holds a book marking him as a gospel author, an attendant angels (or the symbol of the evangelist) carries his inkwell and pen case. In the lower margin two figures emerge from flowers, one holds a practice jousting stick and the other walks on hand crutches. Each appears to smell a strawberry, perhaps a reference to the ‘fragrant offering of Christ’ in the text above, ‘ordore’ in the plural can also mean herbs or plants. The strawberry frequently appears as a symbol of Christ’s Passion, and may be a reference to the saint’s own martyrdom.