Assumption of Mary Magdalene 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 St Mary Magdalena opens with the illuminated initial ‘I’ (In diebus illis mulier que erat in civitate) 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 the Elevation or Assumption of Mary Magdalene. She is the second most important woman in the New Testament after Mary the mother of Jesus. According to later tradition, following the events of the Crucifixion Mary Magdalene moved to a mountain retreat in France where seven times a day angels lifted her to heaven. She is depicted naked but covered in her long hair as the Penitent Magdalene, Mary of Egypt is also shown in this way. The antiphon below paraphrases verses from Luke 7, the story of the sinful woman who anointed Jesus’s feet with expensive oil form an alabaster jar. In the lower margin she carries this jar of oil. A butterfly is added to the upper margin on the verso.