Adoration of the True Cross from the Coëtivy Hours

Object Information

Material:: Parchment (material) Gold leaf Gold pigment Pigment (material) Ink (material)

Description:: Folio with three-quarter page miniature from a book of hours attributed to the Dunois Master, written in Latin and French in a bastarda script, made in Paris and dated 1443–1445. It was commissioned by Prigent de Coëtivy (1399?–1450) on the occasion of his marriage to Marie de Rais (1429–1457). Removed from the bound volume between 1933 and 1960. Beneath rubrics in blue, a prayer to the Holy Cross opens with the illuminated initial 'C' (Crucem tuam adoramus et veneramus domine) painted with white, red, blue and gold ivy-leaf ornament. The miniature is painted in demi-grisaille with pigments and gold and depicts the Adoration of the True Cross. In the lower margin St Helena, mother of the Roman Emperor Constantine, directs the excavation of the cross discovered during a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. According to tradition, a third of the cross was covered in a silver reliquary and left in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre built at the direction of the emperor and his mother on the site of its discovery. Constantine and Helena kneel on the left, the scroll repeats the opening of the prayer. The bejewelled reliquary is supported on an altar by two angels. On the verso the marginal details are altered and instead include a bird and a pretend joust between two men astride a goat and a ram (side-saddle).

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