Summerfield B491: Hybrid Marginal Cycles, Artistically Framed

Summerfield B491: Hybrid Marginal Cycles, Artistically Framed

Pigouchet’s engravings participated in a visual culture established by artists who worked across diverse media. For example, the marginal hunting scenes that reoccur throughout Summerfield B491 are strikingly similar to hunting imagery in contemporary tapestries. The tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art representing The Hunt for the Unicorn include depictions of hunters dressed in similar costume and interacting with hounds. Scholars attribute these designs to drawings by the Master of the Apocalypse Rose, an unknown artist. Designs for the stained glass rose window at Sainte-Chapelle, for The Hunt for the Unicorn tapestries, and for Pigouchet’s metalcuts are also attributed to this artist. While the identity of this individual is unknown, it is clear that Pigouchet and his artistic network drew on late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century artistic imagery already present in northern France and the southern Netherlands. The other printed Book of Hours in this exhibition, Summerfield C65, includes similar hunting imagery.

Summerfield B491

Spencer Research Library Special Collections, University of Kansas

c. 1502

Book of Hours

Spencer Research Library Special Collections, Summerfield B491, fol. c_viv

Ink on paper, 16th c. printed Book of Hours