Book of Hours Gray-FitzPayn
The Grey-FitzPayn book of hours is a large volume, not comparable to the tiny book of hours by Jeanne d'Evreux , which is at least twenty years ahead of time. It was a wedding present from Sir Richard de Gray to his bride, Joan FitzPayn.
description
- Liturgy of Sarum . England , Midlands , around 1300–1308. 24.5 × 17 cm, 93ff.
- 2 full-page miniatures , 3 large figurative initials , ornamental initials, bar borders .
- Fitzwilliam Museum , Cambridge , ms. 242
It is the Divine Office for the Trinity , the opening verse is marked with the initial D ( "Domine, labia mea aperies" ), with Christ enthroned and blessing Joan FitzPayn , who is kneeling in front of him and wearing a coat of arms .
The border that develops from the figurative initial contains a small initial with Joan's portrait further down on the page and extends up and down into the edge of the page as a platform for moving hunting scenes . Upstairs, dogs are chasing a rabbit , unnoticed by the boar and lion . At the foot of the page is a deer hunt ; Here a rabbit crouches, motionless and with big ears, under the struck animal, whose neck is pierced by an archer in the right corner as it leaps towards a lion and a fox-tailed animal who seem to be watching a prey.
The goat climbing a tree on the outer edge is a motif already known in Mesopotamian art, but also a process that the artist could observe every day in his own garden. The birds, a popular theme in English manuscripts of this time, are very finely executed as they carefully look at the heraldic shields and the blessing figure of Christ in the background.
From a stylistic point of view, miniatures and borders of the Gray-FitzPayn Book of Hours show French-Gothic influence in connection with English precision of observation, especially when depicting birds and animals. The drolleries, grotesques, and hunting scenes that give the pages of this book so much movement can also be found in other manuscripts of the period.
history
The Gray-FitzPayn wedding took place in 1300/01, and since Joan died in 1308, the date of creation of the manuscript can be pinpointed to within a few years.
literature
- Donald Drew Egbert: The Tickhill Psalter and related Manuscripts. A School of Manuscript Illumination in England during the early Fourteenth Century. New York Public Library et al., New York NY 1940, chap. 3 and Appendix II. (This contains a comprehensive description of the Gray-FitzPayn Hours).
- The Gray FitzPayn Book of Hours. In: John Harthan: Books of hours and their owners. German translation by Regine Klett. Herder, Freiburg (Breisgau) et al. 1977, ISBN 3-451-17907-5 , pp. 43-45.