Customer Reviews

The Hours of Etienne Chevalier

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The book details are amazing, the illuminations are
attached on the pages. The gold details make an effect
fantastic under the light of the sun.
Paris in fifteenth century is represented in realistic
manner. In this book the Braziller publishing has exalted the masterpiece of Jean Fouquet.

A very nice addition to an art book collection if you can get your hands on a copy, since as of this writing it is out of print.

The book comes in a black cardboard slipcase with a paste-on title on each side. The book itself is finely bound in red cloth with a large gold textura "ec" (i.e. Etienne Chevalier's monogram that appears constantly in the miniatures) on the front. There is a lengthy introduction to the history of the work. The plates themselves are always accompanied by a description on the facing page. The plates are pasted in, as one occasionally sees in older art books, and some of them dangle free on one side, as is again typical. The colors of the reproduction are rather dull (duller than the original I suspect) and slightly blurry on close inspection. The gold ink used is exceptionally shiny compared to similar facsimiles of manuscripts.

Jean Foquet's understanding of aerial perspective (e.g. plate 34) and linear perspective (e.g. plate 25) are most exceptional. Faces are highly realistic and delicately painted (the women's skin appearing gray as is common for French art of this period); drapery is also well executed and rather angular, reminiscent of Durer's style and various other woodcuts from the period. The manuscript has very lovely borders of the the mixed scrolling vine type and also the more realistic acanthus/flower type (close in style to the Hours of Englebert of Nassau), but not one of the borders is reproduced here. No calligraphy is presented other than the Lombardic-Roman captions below many miniatures, though judging from Google search results, the original had a fine textura script with versals.

I have taken off one star because, due to the early date of printing (1971), the coloring of most plates is duller than the original probably is, most are slightly blurry, and because this work has focused solely on reproducing the miniatures to the detriment of borders and lettering. However it is a worthy addition to a collection, especially for those interested in medieval arts.