St Genevieve 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 blue, a prayer to St Genevieve opens with the illuminated initial ‘O’ (O felix ancilla dei genovesa nos pondere pressos) 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 St Genevieve. She holds a candle which the devil continually stuffs with a bellows only to be relit by an angel. Near her feet, a rabbit can be seen among the trees. A rabbit or hare at the foot of the Virgin Mary symbolises the triumph of chastity. Genevieve is credited with twice saving the people of Paris from attack and is the patron saint of that city. The lower margin is inhabited by a devoted Parisian family praying to their patron saint, echoing the antiphon above.