St Matthias 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 Matthias the Apostle opens with the illuminated initial ‘B’ (Beati apostoli dei elegerunt duos scilicet) 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 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 Saint Matthias. The text in part recounts how the apostle was chosen to replace Judas Iscariot after his betrayal. The Golden Legend, a popular collection of hagiographies (saints’ lives), records that Matthias was stoned and beheaded in Jerusalem. Other traditions place his death elsewhere, including in Ethiopia. Matthias is most often shown holding an axe or halberd as a reference to his beheading. Here he holds a saw, an attribute more often associated with the apostle Simon. It is likely that the artist accidentally used the wrong pattern for Matthias. In the lower margin, a bearded naked man (probably a representation of a soul) emerging from a flower prays before a hybrid creature. The posture suggests a belief in false gods and is perhaps an allusion to Judas.