St Barbara 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 Barbara opens with the illuminated initial ‘G’ (Gaude Barbara serena virgo patris quam effrena) 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 Barbara. She is said to have been martyred in the time of Maximian (r. 285–310). Her story is recorded in the Golden Legend, a popular collection of saints’ lives. Barbara was the daughter of an angry and possessive man who imprisoned her in a tower. While her father was away, she convinced the builders to add a third window to symbolise the Trinity. When her father returned and discovered her unwavering faith he executed her, and was then himself struck dead by lightning. It is presumably her angry father emerging from a flower in the lower margin. In the main painting, Barbara carries both her three-windowed tower and the palm of a martyr. She was perhaps the inspiration behind the story of Rapunzel. A small snail is added to the upper margin on the verso.