Dreweatts & Bloomsbury (Bloomsbury)
Lot 62
A Roman council, most probably the Senate, - large miniature from an illuminated manuscript of Cicero’s works... large miniature from an illuminated manuscript of Cicero s works in the French translation of Laurent de Premierfait, on parchment [central France (perhaps Nantes or Tours), third quarter of the fifteenth century] Large cutting from a leaf, with a miniature showing a richly decorated bench within a gothic interior with detailed carved figures set in the walls, the contours of these highlighted with liquid gold brushstrokes, the bench filled with old men, most with long and bedraggled beards, as two young men approach, border on 2 sides of coloured acanthus leaves and other foliage with red flowerbuds and pale blue flowers, the border enclosing another bearded man in a russet robe with large buttons up the front, who stands and gazes at the scene with a single finger raised perhaps denoting that he is speaking and thus the narrator of the text, some small scuffs and losses to paint, firmly laid down on wooden board, nineteenth-century no. 475 on reverse, 215mm. by 153mm., carved gilt frame This cutting is one of a series of miniatures from an aristocratic copy of the French translation of Cicero s De Senectute and De Amicitia of Laurent de Premierfait ( c . 1380-1418), the early French humanist of the court of King Charles VI and his bibliophilic relatives Louis de Bourbon, bishop of Liège and Jean, duke de Berry. The present miniature perhaps illustrates De Senectute , ch. 11, in which the narrator take the form of an old man who declares that research and reading are my intellectual gymnastics; these the race-courses of my mind; and while I sweat and toil with them I do not greatly feel the loss of bodily strength. I act as counsel for my friends; I frequently attend the senate, where, on my own motion, I propose subjects for discussion after having pondered over them seriously and long; and there I maintain my views in debate, not with strength of body, but with force of mind . The artist was a follower of Jean Fouquet (1420-81), the preeminent French painter of the fifteenth century and court painter to King Louis XI at Tours. The parent manuscript of this cutting with its large number of entirely secular miniatures may well have been commissioned by a member of the royal family or household.
