Hours of Étienne Chevalier

The Hours of Étienne Chevalier is an illuminated book of hours commissioned by Étienne Chevalier, treasurer to king Charles VII of France, from the miniature painter and illuminator Jean Fouquet.

Only 48 of its leaves with 47 miniatures survive, dispersed across seven collections in Europe and the United States of America. 40 of these illuminations are held at the Musée Condé in Château de Chantilly in France.

It was probably commissioned by Chevalier for his personal use around 1452, just after he was made treasurer of France by Charles VII of France and just after the death of his wife, who does not appear in any of the illuminations with him. He was definitely the commissioner of the work, since his portrait appears frequently in it, as do his full name "Maistre Estienne Chevalier" (notably in the border of the image of The Presentation of the Virgin) and his cypher "EE" in several of the miniatures. It was probably completed around 1460 - François Avril and Nicole Reynaud state that for most of the 1450s Fouquet spent almost all his time on this and another commission from Chevalier, the Melun Diptych.

The manuscript was owned by Chevalier's descendents until the 17th century and by his last direct descendent, Nicolas Chevalier (1562–1630). The scholar François Roger de Gaignières indicates that it appeared intact at the end of the 17th century and so it was probably split up over the course of the 18th century, with each miniature cut out to turn them into separate artworks and their textual parts obscured.

40 of the best-preserved miniatures were mounted on wooden panels by a Parisian frame-maker at the end of the 18th century. During the French Revolution, these 40 miniatures were bought by an art-dealer from Basel who sold them in 1809 to the German banker Georges Brentano. His son Louis sold them on to Prince Henri, Duke of Aumale in 1891 for 250,000 francs. Prince Henry then exhibited them at his château de Chantilly in its Santuario, where they can still be seen.

...
Wikipedia