Made in Rouen c.1505-10, it is a version of the chronicle that was edited, written and illuminated to the commission of Georges d’Amboise. A Cardinal and Archbishop of Rouen who was twice put forward as a candidate for the papacy, d’Amboise was also a diplomat and statesman, who in 1498 had been appointed prime minister to the newly enthroned Louis XII. His construction and furnishing of the Chateau de Gaillon, an archiepiscopal palace near Rouen, was “one of the supreme extravagances of the Renaissance”, where as well as hordes of architects, masons, gilders and other craftsmen from all over Europe, some 40 artists, eight sculptors, five glass painters, three goldsmiths and a dozen scribes were added to the payroll.
Building a library on the grand scale, Georges d’Amboise bought the Aragonese royal library en bloc and commissioned manuscripts of the greatest luxury, like this stunning manuscript – the finest of the 50 or so surviving manuscript versions of this most famous of all medieval chronicles.
In 1502-03 d’Amboise spent the vast sum of 1000 livres on manuscripts, but he was not able to enjoy them for long, and one wonders indeed whether he ever actually saw the finished manuscript, for in May 1510 he was struck dead of the gout whilst on a visit to Lyon.
Last seen at auction in June 1991, when it sold at £1.25m to Tenschert (who in 1992 issued what has been described as the finest catalogue on a single manuscript ever seen), it was this time sold to an unnamed bidder.
The Sotheby’s sale comprised two catalogues, but while the principal selection of “Fifty Magnificent…’ manuscripts did raise £4.24m, including premiums, the Froissart Chronicles accounted for three quarters of that total and only 18 lots were actually sold. The smaller, general sale, which raised a premium-inclusive total of £164,438, saw 20 of 31 lots find new homes.
Did D’Amboise ever get to see Jean Froissart’s costly Chronicles
FILLED with nearly 200 dazzling images of battles, knights, damsels in distress, tournaments, and castles that represent the finest work of the Rouen illuminators of the early Renaissance and captures all the pageantry and drama of the Hundred Years’ War, the extraordinarily fresh illuminated manuscript of Froissart’s Chronicles that sold for £2.75m at Sotheby’s on December 3 must have been the finest and most profusely illustrated manuscript of that famous work ever made.
