The Primer of Claude of France

Underdrawing

Artists' Techniques

Preparatory drawings, loosely painted with a liquid medium (i.e. brush and ink), are present on most pages.

Architectural features as well as the outlines, faces and clothes of the figures were roughly sketched. Sketches were not always followed closely at the painting stage, as is especially apparent in drapery folds.

The naked bodies of Adam and Eve were carefully drawn, particularly the figure of Adam in the bottom left image on fol. 4r. 

A straight line running between or just above the eyes was often drawn to help position them within the face – this is most evident in the figures of the young Virgin Mary and St Anne on fol. 9r.

Select the ‘infrared’ layer when viewing each of the folios on the right to see the underdrawings.

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1
Detail of the angel’s red face under magnification (10x). According to the biblical account, after God expelled Adam from Eden, he appointed two high-ranking angels, a pair of cherubim, to guard the gates of Paradise. In medieval art, cherubim, associated with divine knowledge, are generally blue, but this one, armed with a sword, is red, the colour customarily assigned to another type of angel, the seraphim whose name means ‘burning ones’.
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2
Detail of the serpent’s face under magnification (7.5x). In the book of Genesis, the serpent is not described as female, but in his highly influential biblical commentary, the Historia scholastica, Peter Comestor, chancellor of the cathedral school of Notre Dame, Paris (c. 1164), stated that the serpent had ‘the face of a virgin’, and that Eve was inclined to listen to it because ‘like attracts like’. By giving the serpent female characteristics, a male theologian transformed it into a creature that mirrors Eve, and by extension, all women. This misogynistic motif can be seen in images of the Temptation dating from the 12th to the 17th century.

Temptation of Eve; Eve offering fruit to Adam; Expulsion of Adam and Eve

The infrared image of this page reveals the careful way in which Adam and Eve’s bodies were drawn, especially clear in the body of Adam in the lower left scene. It also shows that the serpent tempting Eve was initially designed to have wings, one of which was sketched but never painted.

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