Assistants of the Rohan Masters
Artists
Several other illuminators assisted the Giac, Rohan and Madonna Masters.
The most accomplished among them painted three large miniatures (fols. 119r, 134r, 147r). The Pentecost miniature (fol. 127r) was provided by a less competent assistant who also supplied the scenes for the marginal cycle in this section of the volume (for instance, fol. 111v). The Giac Master designed all small miniatures – in the Calendar, in the marginal cycles and within the main text of the suffrages – and painted many of them himself. But two assistants, including the artist of the Pentecost miniature, helped him with the marginal cycles. The collaboration between the main artists and their assistants is most obvious in the image of the Virgin and Child on fol. 24r. The Rohan Master sketched the miniature, as his characteristic underdrawing reveals. He left the painting to an assistant who replicated the Giac Master’s tiled floors and beady-eyed faces, but had not yet mastered the handling of pigments, some of which have lost adhesion and flaked off the page.
Virgin and Child (prayer O intemerata)
This composition, with a figure seated on a bench and books displayed on the desk, replicates the design of the image of St John painted by the Rohan Master (fol. 13r). The Rohan Master sketched this image too, as his idiosyncratic underdrawing reveals. But he left the painting to an assistant who was trained by the Giac Master and replicated his tiled floors and his bland, plump, beady-eyed faces. The assistant had not yet mastered the preparation and application of his pigments, as their poor condition indicates. Aesthetically and technically inferior as this miniature may be, it is an important link between the Rohan and Giac Masters, as it shows them sharing an assistant.
The marginal scene of the Flagellation illustrates the Pilgrimage of Jesus Christ cycle. The arms of Isabella Stuart have been added to the border.