Blue pigments
Artists' Materials
Precious ultramarine blue was used by all the main artists in this manuscript, both in the figurative scenes and in the decorated initials. The blue ink used for rubrics and captions is also ultramarine. The blue foliage which enriches the borders was painted with both ultramarine and azurite, usually juxtaposed to create shadows and highlights.
The cheaper azurite blue was also used in some decorated initials and, on selected folios, in the diamond-pattern background of large and small miniatures. It may have been used by assistants who were completing the images painted by the more accomplished artists. For instance, the chequered background on fol. 18v contains both ultramarine and azurite, suggesting that the Rohan Master painted some of the background, but left its completion to an assistant.
The assistant who painted the three large miniatures on fols. 119r, 134r and 147r used mixtures of ultramarine and azurite in all his blue areas, including draperies.
The two Breton illuminators who altered or added images in the 1440s and 1450s used only azurite.
Margaret of Brittany praying to the Virgin and Child (prayer Omnis virtus)
The prayer and its image were added for Margaret of Brittany. She is shown kneeling before the Virgin and Child at a prayer desk draped in fabric embroidered with the arms of Brittany. Margaret received the manuscript from her mother, Isabella Stuart, probably around 1455, the year of her marriage to her cousin, the future Francis II of Brittany. The text and image would have been added shortly after that and certainly before 1458 when Margaret became a duchess. Her tall, gold turret and its magnificent veil find parallels in manuscripts of the mid-1450s and denote Margaret’s wealth, but after 1458 she might have chosen to have herself depicted with a ducal coronet instead.
The marginal scene of Pentecost, illustrating the Pilgrimage of Jesus Christ cycle, belongs to the original campaign.
The added miniature was painted with an organic green, azurite and vermilion instead of the malachite, ultramarine and red lead found in the marginal scene and in most other images that belong to the original campaign. The use of cheaper blues and greens implies that Margaret may not have had access to the resources which were at the disposal of her parents, let alone of the manuscript’s original owner.