L’Office de la Sainte et immaculée conception de la glorieuse Vierge Marie drop-title

BEUREUTTE, Toussaint (owner?).

L’Office de la Sainte et immaculée conception de la glorieuse Vierge Marie [drop-title]. [France], 1671.

Illuminated manuscript on vellum (135 x 85 mm). 21 leaves, unfoliated, preceded by 5 blank leaves, 1 blank at end. Written on rectos and versos in an elegant calligraphic italic script, in brown ink, headings in red capitals, drop-title on fol. [3]r in liquid gold, red and blue capitals, initials in gold or red, colophon on fol. [20]v (1671 with 3 closed S’s) in gold, page borders in blue and gold. On fol. [1]v (recto blank) is an oval watercolor and gouache portrait miniature of a young girl, surmounting four lines of verse; dedication page, fol. [2]r, with Toussaint Beureutte's name and monogram in gold; large monogram on recto of last leaf with the letters D, I and C, also in gold, within red and gold frame. Some fading to ink, especially of first page-opening (portrait and dedication), small hole in last leaf. 19th-century black goatskin, possibly using the original boards, metal cornerpieces, marbled endleaves, original paper flyleaves (fragmentary). Provenance: Toussaint Beureutte, secretary to the Queen, who inscribed his name Beureutte on the first blank vellum leaf.***

An impeccably executed small calligraphic prayer book on vellum, adorned with a lovely portrait of a girl. The text contains short prayers to and hours of the Virgin.

Beneath the girl’s portrait is the following quatrain, signed by Beureutte:
Ce Portrait dont tu vois l'Image / Fut un Grand Chef d'Oeuvre en effet /
Et son divin Autheur le trouva si parfait / Qu'il s'enferma dans son Ouvrage.

The unsigned portrait miniature is placed opposite a dedication to the Virgin (Vierge Sainte, je vous offre mon coeur), at the foot of which Beureutte identifies himself as Secrétaire ordinaire de la [Rey]ne (faded). While the context identifies the portrait as an image of Mary, the girl appears to have no halo or other sacred insignia, and the realistic depiction of her facial features implies that the artist may at the same time have depicted a real girl (perhaps a daughter of Beureutte?). At the foot of the verses are several letters and symbols, in green. A heart at center is flanked on the left by the letters G and B, linked together by a figure 8 symbol (representing love), followed by an ID monogram; and on the right by the connected letters repeated, the B being here the first letter of Beureutte’s signature. The letters D, I and C make up the final monogram, on fol. [21]r.

The manuscript identifies Toussaint Beureutte as secretary to the queen and a captain in the royal artillery. He does not figure in contemporary lists of calligraphers, an omission that would be surprising given the calligraphic quality of this manuscript; he may therefore have been the patron who commissioned it from an unknown calligrapher. His wife’s name was Jeanne Duchaîne; thus the ID initials could refer to her, but that does not explain the letters GB, which do not fit either of Beureutte's two known daughters, or the final DIC monogram (possibly Dominus Jesus Christus?).

Our thanks to Marc Smith of the Ecole nationale des chartes for his helpful suggestions, including biographical information concerning Beureutte.