[SS. FIACRE of BREUIL and CATHERINE of ALEXANDRIA]

[SS. FIACRE of BREUIL and CATHERINE of ALEXANDRIA]
Single leaf from a Book of Hours, with two historiated initials painted in camaieu d'or style, in Latin, illuminated manuscript on vellum
[France (probably Tours)
c. 1460-80]
St. Fiacre of Breuil was a seventh-century hermit and pharmacological gardener who left his native Ireland for Brie, Seine-et-Marne, France, there founding a hermitage and hospice for travellers famed for its medicinal treatments. He is the patron saint of gardeners. Other leaves from the same parent-book have appeared in Sotheby's, London, 24 June 1986, lot 36, and 6 December 2001, lot 17; and Maggs Bros., cat. 1298 (2001), no. 48, and European Bulletin 26 (2008), no. 42
Single leaf, 137 by 95mm, with single column of 16 lines of two sizes of lettre bâtarde, capitals touched in yellow, red rubrics, one 2-line initial in gold foliage on blue ground, two historiated initials in white scrollwork on dark brown, enclosing detailed scenes of St. Fiacre with his spade before a short stockade (probably indicating he is in a garden) and St. Catherine with her wheel in an interior scene, these in hairline gold strokes on a dark brown ground (i.e. camaieu d'or, as championed by Jean Fouquet in Tours in the middle of the fifteenth century), each initial on a blue ground decorated with similar gold hairline strokes, a few small spots and marks, else in excellent condition