Group of Confessors 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 the confessors opens with the illuminated initial ‘S’ (Sint lumbi viri precinct et Lucerne ardentes in minibus viris) 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 eight confessors. A confessor is a saint who was not martyred. The miniature shows a pope (wearing the papal tiara), bishop, cardinal and numerous monks in different colour habits. In the lower margin is another bishop with crozier and priest reading from a book. A peacock is added to the upper margin on the verso. The figures do not necessarily represents any of the previously illustrated saints but rather types of orders and ecclesiastical ranks.