The Giac Master
Artists
The Giac Master was an itinerant professional who worked in the Auvergne, Paris, Champagne and Anjou from c. 1400 until c. 1440.
He is named after a Book of Hours (Toronto, Royal Ontario Museum, MS 997.158.14) made c. 1410 for Jean de Pechin, wife of Louis de Giac who was at various times in the service of the French King, the Dauphin, and the Dukes of Berry and Burgundy. A prolific artist, the Giac Master reused workshop patterns in order to complete the lengthy pictorial cycles of multi-volume historical texts. The Hours of Isabella Stuart preserve many of his characteristic motifs, notably the plump, beady-eyed faces, the gold or silver cloudes drifting across the sky, and the green and black tiled floors devoid of perspective. He designed the manuscript’s ambitious decorative programme and painted much of it himself, but he also received help from two talented colleagues and several assistants.
Patron praying to Christ (prayer to be said for oneself)
This is the third image of the woman in black, most probably Yolande of Aragon who was widowed in 1417. She kneels at a prayer desk with an open book (presumably this manuscript) and looks across to the image of Christ that illustrates her prayer – ‘a prayer for oneself’, according to the rubric. Seated on a rainbow at the Last Judgement, Christ extends his hand to the woman, an eloquent gesture promising salvation at the end of her book and at the end of time.