Virgin and Child in a garden 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 the Virgin opens with the illuminated initial ‘S’ (Stella maria maris) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. It is one of an unusually large series of prayers and paintings dedicated to the Virgin Mary in this manuscript. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts the Virgin and Child in an enclosed garden (hortus conclusus). The setting itself is a reference to Paradise. White and red roses are woven through the trellis, symbolising Mary’s purity and Christ’s future Passion respectively. Both mother and son have a hand on a piece of fruit, perhaps an apple or pomegranate, alluding again to the Passion and redemption of sin. The baby’s other hand grasps a harp played by an angel whose very presence emphasises the holy nature of the scene. Beyond the garden, rivers combine and flow into the far distance. The prayer opens ‘Mary, Star of the Sea’, a title afforded the holy mother that may have had a particular appeal to Prigent as Admiral. Two figures emerging from flowers in the lower margin pray to the holy pair above.