Jean Pichore (fl. c.1490-1521) and Jean d'Ypres (fl. 1490-1500)
Fifteen hand-coloured metalcuts on paper, from a Book of Hours, Paris, probably 1514

A unique array of fifteen metalcut prints on paper with vibrant contemporary hand colouring and liquid gold highlights, from designs by Jean Pichore and Jean d'Ypres.

Each c.120 x 77mm.Provenance: France, private collection, sold Coutances, Hôtel des Ventes Coutances, 18 June 2007.

Fourteen of these plates follow designs by Jean Pichore, a prolific Parisian illuminator active c.1490-1521. Engravings after Pichore’s designs appear in numerous printed Books of Hours and are derived from the artist’s designs for illuminated manuscripts made for illustrious patrons. Pichore’s wide-ranging impact in Paris has been studied extensively by Caroline Zöhl (2004). The plate here with the Flight into Egypt clearly finds inspiration in a full-page miniature in Cardinal York’s Book of Hours, illuminated by Pichore around 1500 (Royal Collection Trust). Just one of the plates in this group, the Tree of Jesse, is a design after Jean d’Ypres, also known as the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany, as well as many other conventional names in the literature, including the Master of the Apocalypse Rose of the Sainte-Chapelle, the Master of the Hunt of the Unicorn, and the Master of the Life of Saint John the Baptist (see Nettekoven 2004). A recent consensus has solidified around the identity of this master as Jean d’Ypres (see Vrand 2019). Like Pichore, Jean d’Ypres worked in numerous media, including painted altarpieces, stained glass windows, designs for tapestries, and illuminated manuscripts (such as his eponymous Book of Hours in Paris, BnF, MS NAL 1320). The plate here with the Tree of Jesse apparently circulated for decades among print shops in Paris and appeared in numerous Books of Hours printed by Anthoine Vérard.

These metalcuts doubtlessly come from an octavo-size Book of Hours printed in Paris, and probably from an edition printed in 1514. Their arrangement here does not follow the sequence of the Book of Hours from which they originate. The last of these fifteen, the Nursing Madonna, is a re-used plate derived from the device of the printer-publisher Guillaume Anabat (active in Paris between 1505 and 1510). The coat of arms and name are here left blank, whereas the coat of arms in Anabat’s device show three clover-shaped trefoils and a star. The unicorn corresponds to Anabat’s sign above his shop on the Petit Pont in Paris. This repurposed plate was used by Jean de la Roche in a small series of Books of Hours dated 1514 and printed for Guillaume Eustace, including one with seventeen large and fifteen small metalcuts (Renouard, II, 1977, no 850; see Davies 1935, p.164). Only six copies worldwide of this 1514 series are recorded in the Universal Short Title Catalogue (USTC 14412, 60763, 72670, and 72680). This 1514 series is the most likely source for all fifteen of the coloured prints in the present group. However, a handful of surviving printed Books of Hours are also illustrated with these plates engraved with designs after Pichore. Thirteen of them (all but the Tree of Jesse and the Nursing Madonna) appear in a Book of Hours dated March 9, 1508, printed by Jean Barbier and Nicolas Vivien for Guillaume Eustace (Renouard, I, 1972, 1508, no 110; Bohatta 852, 853). Only four copies are known of this edition, with one in Paris at the Bibliothèque national de France (Res. 8-T-2544).

The vibrant colouring shows how artists used opaque and transparent washes of colour to model figures and enliven landscapes, often emulating illuminated manuscripts. At the same time the artist chose to highlight or obscure details within the engravings, at times painting over certain details. Copious highlights in liquid gold lend the figures greater depth and give contrast to the deep blues and reds. Gold is also used in pseudo-script on hem lines and in the altar canopy above the Presentation in the Temple. Washes of colour over the print with the Trinity show some signs of flaking, suggesting these fifteen prints were perhaps excised from a damaged book to save the pictures from destruction.

The subjects of the plates are as follows (from left to right, top to bottom), all after designs by Jean Pichore, with the exception of one:

The Trinity; Tree of Jesse (after Jean d’Ypres); David and Uriah; Annunciation; Annunciation to the Shepherds; Adoration of the Magi; Flight into Egypt; Presentation in the Temple; Pentecost; Coronation of the Virgin; Raising of Lazarus; Betrayal of Christ; Martyrdom of St John; Augustus and the Tiburtine Sibyl; Nursing Madonna, with a man kneeling in prayer holding a banderole with printed text 'O m[ate]r dei / meme[n]to mei'.

H. Bohatta, Bibliographie der Livres d'Heures, Vienna, 1924.

D.E. Booton, Publishing Networks in France in the Early Era of Print, New York, 2018.

J.-C Brunet, Manuel du libraire et de l'amateur de livres, vol. 5, Paris, 1864.

Davies, Devices of the Early Printers, London, 1935.

I. Nettekoven, Der Meister des Apokalypsenrose der Sainte Chapelle und die Pariser Buchkunst um 1500, Turnhout, 2004.

P. Renouard, Inventaire chronologique des éditions parisiennes du XVIe siècle, I-II, Paris, 1972 and 1977.

R.H. Rouse and M. A. Rouse, M. Manuscripts and Their Makers: Commercial Book Producers in Medieval Paris, 1200-1500, Turnhout, 2000.

L.-C Silvestre, Marques typographiques, vol. 1, 1867, no 654.

H. Tenschert and I. Nettekoven, Horae B.M.V.: 158 Stundenbuchdruke der Sammlung Bibermühle, vol. I, Schaffhausen, 2003, esp. pp.122-28 for the Master of the Très Petites Heures of Anne of Brittany and pp.336-344 for Jean Pichore.

C. Vrand, 'Jean d’Ypres, peintre ed dessinateur,' Mystérieux coffrets: Estampes au temps de la Dame à la Licorne, Paris, 2019, pp.26-43.

M.B. Winn, Anthoine Vérard: Parisian Publisher 1485-1512, Geneva, 1997.

C. Zöhl, Jean Pichore: Buchmaler, Graphiker und Verleger in Paris um 1500, Turnhout, 2004, esp. p.146.

Online resources:
Paris, Bibliothèque national de France, Res. 8-T-2544: https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k15114522/f9.item

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