Golden legend

Accession number:

MS M.672-675

Title:

Golden legend

Created:

Bruges, Belgium, 1445-1465.

Binding:

The Pierpont Morgan Library volumes were formerly in 19th-century crimson morocco (2 volumes); rebound into 4 volumes by Chambolle-Duru for Edouard Rahir around 1911 in maroon morocco.

Credit:

Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) in 1911.

Description:

4 v. (1 column, 30 lines), bound : vellum, ill. ; 379 x 270 mm

Provenance:

Made ca. 1445-1460 for Jean d'Auxy, knight of the Golden Fleece and bound into 3 volumes; Charles de Chabannes, seigneur de La Palisse between 1540 and 1552; Henriette de la Guiche, wife of Louis Emmanuel de Valois, duc d'Angoulême; community of Minims at La Guiche, near Charobles; after suppression of the convent, was sent along with 21 other manuscripts to the regional Department of Saôn-et-Loire in 1794; removed along with 4 other manuscripts and transferred to his own residence at Charbonnières by F.-M. Moreau (1764-1833), general treasurer of Mâcon from 1797-1814; after his death May 29, 1833 all 5 of his convent manuscripts were sold in the 1834 Moreau estate sale to a M. Barjaud (for 300 francs) who bought them ostensibly for the city of Mâcon; Barjaud was reimbursed for the purchase Apr. 7, 1835, but the third volume only entered the Mâcon Bibliothèque de la ville on Oct. 10, 1835, where it remains today as MS 3; the first two vols. were stolen and sold in England; Joseph Barrois Collection (no. 69); sold in 1849 to the Earl of Ashburnham; his sale (London, Sotheby's, Jun. 12, 1901, lot 616) to Quaritch; Lebeufe de Montgermont (catalogue, 1914, VII, no. 467); Edouard Rahir, who had the two vols. bound into 4; purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837-1913) from Edouard Rahir in July, 1911; J.P. Morgan (1867-1943).

Notes:

Ms. saints' lives; written and illuminated in Bruges, Belgium, between 1445 and 1460.
Translated from Latin into French by Jean de Vignay.
The manuscript was planned for two volumes, but was originally bound into three volumes; it is now divided into five volumes, four at the Pierpont Morgan Library, and one (Mâcon MS 3) at the Bibliothèque municipale (Mâcon, France); additionally, one leaf from the manuscript now known as Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.672 is in the Musée Marmottan, Paris (Wildenstein Collection MS 197); the four at the Pierpont Morgan Library (with the number of leaves they contain) are: Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.672 (124 leaves, plus 4 paper and 2 parchment fly leaves); Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.673 (145 leaves (Index of Christian art database: 146 leaves), plus 4 paper and 2 parchment fly leaves); Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.674 (127 leaves (Index of Christian art database: 138 leaves), plus 4 paper and 2 parchment fly leaves); and Pierpont Morgan Library. MS M.675 (155 leaves, plus 4 paper and 2 parchment fly leaves). MS M.672-674 are foliated continuously.--Cf. PML files.
The text is a variation of the c. 1333 Jean de Vignay translation of Jacapo de Voragine's Legenda Aurea. It is incomplete in M.672-5. The text concerning Saint Crisant, ending on fol. 155v of M.675, and the remaining chapters continue in a fifth volume, Mâcon, Bibliothèque municipale, MS 3.
Scribe: in the style of David Aubert.
Artist: attributed to a group of artists, the principal of which are Guillaume Vrelant, the Maître de la vraie cronicque descoce, the Sapience Master, and the Master of the Harley Froissart; additional participation by the Master of Margaret of York, Loyset Liédet, and the Master of the Jardin de vertueuse consolation.
Three Bruges artists, Willem Vrelant, Loyset Liédet and Philippe de Mazerolles, were previously identified as having executed a number of miniatures throughout M.672-5 (Cf. PML files). These attributions have been challenged by Jean Marden Caswell in her dissertation and her 1993 article (listed below). Caswell has identified at least ten hands at work in these volumes that also appear in another manuscript, Brussels, Bibliothèque Royale, MS 9234. She groups these artists as the "Chroniques II Workshop", named after the Brussels manuscript, the second volume of three containing the Chroniques de Hainaut.
Decoration: grisaille painting. M.672 (31 large miniatures, approx. 15 lines; 52 decorated initials); M.673 (36 large miniatures, approx. 15 lines; 56 decorated initials); M.674 (40 large miniatures, approx. 15 lines; 63 decorated initials); M.675 (36 large miniatures, approx. 15 lines; 62 decorated initials).

Variant Title:

Morgan-Mâcon Golden Legend
Legende Dorée

Script:

bastarda

Language:

Old French

Resources:

Description/Bibliography

Century:

15th century

Genres:

Illuminated manuscripts