6555 - Bellemare Group

Bellemare Group The Nativity. Opaque pigments, rich gold highlights, likely with later black brush outlines, on parchment mounted on wood. 15.3 x 10.6 cm. Circa 1545/50. The miniatures offered under this and the following lot number are outstanding examples of the virtuoso finesse that characterizes the works of the illuminators from the so-called Bellemare Group. The name derives from the Antwerp-trained artist Nöelle Bellemare (d. 1546), who revolutionized French book illumination in the second quarter of the 16th century by introducing new pictorial models. Between approximately 1522 and 1551, under Bellemare’s direction and influence, a corpus of at least 26 manuscripts was produced, which rank among the pinnacles of early modern painting in France. Noteworthy is their stylistic uniformity, although individual painters—such as the Master of the Getty Epistles, the Doheny Master, and the Master of Henry II—emerged over time as distinct artistic personalities. In the 1520s, the depictions were initially clearly influenced by Antwerp Mannerism and the prints of Old German masters, while in the following decades an increasing interest in Italian models—particularly those of Raphael’s school—became evident. The use of Nordic-influenced pictorial conventions is also evident in our two loose-leaf miniatures. The “Nativity” is set within the ruined architecture typical of Antwerp Mannerism. The composition is closely related to two Nativity scenes in a book of hours held at the University Library in Liège (Wittert MS 29, fol. 33r) and a miniature manuscript formerly in the Paul Durrieu Collection (most recently at Christie’s, London, December 14, 2022, Lot 47). The similarities concern the arrangement of the group of figures, which is nearly identical to that on the Liège folio with the exception of Joseph, as well as parts of the background architecture, which find a counterpart in the Durrieu miniature. In terms of painting, our miniature is superior to the other two in its refined execution. According to Myra Orth, the author of the seminal study on the Bellemare group, the Liège miniature—and consequently ours as well—adapts a composition from a book of hours dating from ca. 1530 in the British Library (see Myra Orth: *French Renaissance Manuscripts. The Sixteenth Century, London 2015, cat. 83, esp. p. 275; for a detailed discussion, see also Elizabeth L’Estrange: “Beyond the 1520s: A Bellmare Workshop Manuscript in Liège,” in: Reinventing Traditions. On the Transmission of Artistic Patterns in Late Medieval Manuscript Illumination, Frankfurt am Main 2015, pp. 195–216). In terms of framing, however, the artist breaks new ground. Whereas the border in the comparative examples mentioned above takes the form of a tabernacle, here it consists of elaborate scrollwork with lion masks and caryatids in the style of the Fontainebleau school. The page thus exemplifies the practice common among the artists of the group in the 1540s of drawing on older models and adapting the mise en page to contemporary tastes through Mannerist borders (L’Estrange 2015, pp. 202–204). An almost identical frame can be found on a miniature in the Book of Hours of Henry II (also known as the Heures de Dinteville) at the National Library of France in Paris (BnF, MS lat. 1429, fol. 40r), one of the most significant works of the Bellemare group. We thank Dr. Elizabeth L’Estrange, Birmingham, for valuable insights. Provenance: Edmond Lévy-Ditisheim (1896–1988), Basel. Passed down through inheritance to a private collection in Germany. - Please request condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog. - Please ask for condition reports for individual lots, as the condition is usually not mentioned in the catalog.