Fol. 1

Jean Poyer

Trinity

Prayer Book of Anne de Bretagne
Illuminated by Jean Poyer

France, Tours
ca. 1492–95
126 x 80 mm

The Pierpont Morgan Library, Purchased in 1905

MS M.50 (fol. 1r)
Item description: 

This prayer book was commissioned by Anne de Bretagne, wife of two successive kings of France, Charles VIII and Louis XII, to teach her son, the dauphin Charles-Orland (1492–1495), his catechism. It was painted in Tours by Jean Poyer, an artist documented as working for the queen. The book is richly illustrated, and its thirty-four airy, light-flooded miniatures are among the most delicate examples of late-fifteenth-century art.

Page description: 

Poyer begins the Prayer Book of Anne de Bretagne with an image of the Three Persons of the Holy Trinity, which is a fundamental doctrine of Christianity. The picture illustrates the Our Father.

Poyer's Trinity is unusual. Instead of differentiating among the Three Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, he represents each as a young man with long hair.

Each figure of Poyer's Trinity holds an orb adorned with a cross, signifying Christ's salvation of the world.