Group of Martyrs 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). The folio was removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. Beneath rubrics in red, a prayer to all martyrs opens with the illuminated initial ‘O’ (O veneranda martirium gloriosa certamina) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. 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 a group of eleven martyrs. Only a few are easily identified, these include George wearing his plate armour, Laurence holding his gridiron, and carrying his own flayed skin is Bartholomew. Two further saints emerge from flowers in the lower margin, Stephen on the right with the stones of his martyrdom and the figure with the arrow is probably Sebastian. Between the two is an overpainted coat of arms with the single Coëtivy charge of black and gold bars. On the verso, crudely added around the shield is Alain de Coëtivy’s red cardinal’s galero (wide-brimmed hat) and tassels.