216 pages, hardback, 270 x 220 mm, 160 colour illustrations
PRICE: £30.00
ISBN: 978 1 903470 66 4
This catalogue accompanied an exhibition at the Groeninge Museum, Bruges, which celebrated one of the greatest European artists of the late fourteenth century, André Beauneveu, apparently born in Valenciennes c. 1335. Active throughout the Southern Netherlands, his reputation grew swiftly and in 1364 he was commissioned by the King of France, Charles V, to create a group of royal tombs at St Denis. In the 1370s he oversaw another ambitious funerary project, for Louis de Mâle, Count of Flanders, at Courtrai, whilst continuing to undertake major civic commissions at Ypres, Mechelen and his home town of Valenciennes. Beauneveu spent the last years of his career in Bourges working for the most celebrated royal patron of all, Jean, Duc de Berry.
The extraordinary scope of Beauneveu's talent was fully exploited by Jean de Berry, for whom he produced manuscript illuminations, made designs for stained glass and oversaw the construction of his château at Mehun-sur-Yevre. However, it is primarily his unrivalled skill in the handling of stone which gives Beauneveu such significance, not only in the context of Northern sculpture but also for the arts of Europe as a whole.
The known sculptural oeuvre of Beauneveu, however, is not substantial. The reappearance of the Virgin and Child once in the collection of Eduoard Aynard at the Abbey of Fontenay and its new attribution to this sculptor "who had no better nor equal in any land" dramatically increases our knowledge of his work and must entail a rethink of many histories of French and Flemish art in the fourteenth century, for we now have not two but three life-sized figures from which our view of his style and achievements can be formed.
These works of museum quality, from an anonymous collection (one of the most important currently in private hands), were exhibited at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2005. Many of the objects in the catalogue will be well known to those familiar with the specialist literature, even if they were unaware of their whereabouts. More
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In the middle of the fourteenth century, Europe was devastated by an appalling epidemic which killed a third of its population. Accused of having spread the disease, Jewish communities faced terrible persecutions, which often led them to bury their most valuable goods. Two of these hoards, discovered at Colmar in 1863 and at Erfurt in 1998, are discussed and illustrated in this splendid catalogue, published to accompany an exhibition at the Wallace Collection London. More
Medieval art has been collected for at least 200 years, yet there is a perception that if it is not locked away in a monastery it has found its home in a museum long ago. Nothing could be further from the truth. It is the richness and variety of what still lies unclaimed by history that makes this material so interesting. More