In 1975, Charles Sterling first baptized the Master of Claude de France after two Books of Hours, then in the possession of bookdealer H. P. Kraus in New York, painted c. 1515–1517 for Claude de France (1499–1524), the daughter of King Louis XII and Anne of Brittany and the first wife of the future Francis I (r. 1515–1547), whom she married in 1514. These two manuscripts are a Prayer Book for Claude now owned by the Morgan Library and Museum (MS M.1166) and a companion Book of Hours handled by the dealer Heribert Tenschert.

Both are full of personal references to Claude, and both are jewel-like and very tiny. The illuminator was probably attached at one point to the royal family, for another miniature manuscript, a Primer, by his hand was made around the same time, c. 1515–1517, for Claude’s baby sister Renée who was born in 1510 (Modena, Bibl. Estense, A.U.2.28=lat. 614). His art is situated between that of Jean Bourdichon and Jean Poyet, both active in Tours, where the royal family had their court in the sixteenth century. It has been suggested that the Claude Master collaborated with Jean Bourdichon on the Hours of Louis XII in 1498–1499 (see a leaf in Philadelphia, Free Library, John Frederick Lewis Collection, Lewis EM 11:22v) and in the Hours of Frederick of Aragon (Paris, BnF, MS lat. 10532). He evidently learned flower painting under Bourdichon’s tutelage, which he mastered in the small manuscript recently acquired by the Metropolitan Museum of Art (The Cloisters Collection 2019.197). Many of his later works are larger in scale, such as the Gospel Lectionary in Cambridge (Harvard University, Houghton Library, MS Typ. 252), a dismembered Book of Hours, from which parts of a calendar and single leaves survive (New York, Morgan Library and Museum, MS M.1171; and Frances Beatty and Allen Adler collection), and a Book of Hours in the British Library (Add. MS 35315), the latter a collaboration between the Claude Master and a Poyet follower. Since 1975, the oeuvre of the Master of Claude de France has grown to around thirty works.



Considering the subject and similarity of the composition, the present fullpage miniature must come from another copy of the Trés saincte vie, mort et miracles du glorieulx sainct Hierosme that has been attributed to Jean Thenaud by Anne-Marie Lecoq, who dated the text c. 1509–1511. Four copies are known: Paris, BnF, MS fr. 418, illuminated for Anne of France (1461–1452) and attributed variously to the Circle of the Master of Claude de France or a follower of the Claude Master; Paris, BnF, MS fr. 421, illuminated for Queen Anne of Britany by Jean Pichore; Provo, Brigham Young University, for an unknown recipient illuminated by Etienne Colaud; and a copy sold in Paris, Hotel Drouot, 29 March 1985, lot 30, without full-page miniatures, now in a private collection. Lecoq discusses the text, iconography, and patronage in relationship to women at the court of France. The dissemination of the text and quality of the present illumination raises the question as to which woman was the recipient of the manuscript from which the present miniature comes. Claude de France herself is certainly a possibility.



A complete description is available upon request.