André Beauneveu
André Beauneveu (born c. 1335 in
Biography
As with all northern European artists of this period, reliable biographical information about Beauneveu is extremely sparse, being mainly limited to a few mentions in the financial accounts of his patrons. The earliest documentary reference to "Master Andrew the Painter" (assumed to be Beauneveu) appears in the accounts of Duchess Yolande de Bar in 1359, where he is recorded as working on the decoration of a chapel in her castle at Nieppe (destroyed). By 1364 he was in Paris, as part of an extensive artistic workshop employed by King Charles V, who refers to him as our esteemed Andreu Bauneveu our sculptor (see below for details of the work he undertook for the King).
No documentary evidence survives for Beauneveu's whereabouts between 1367 and 1372. It has been suggested, based on comments by his contemporary and fellow Valenciennois
In 1386 he made the move to Bourges to enter the service of one of the greatest artistic patrons of medieval Europe, the
There are no dated references to Beauneveu's life after 1388 but it is generally assumed that he died some time around 1400.[2]
Manuscript illumination
One of the few firmly attributable works by the hand of Beauneveu is the Psalter of Jean de Berry (Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale, MS. fr. 13091), which is mentioned as being the work of the artist in a 1402 inventory of the ducal treasury. Beauneveu's contribution to this illuminated manuscript was a series of 24 full-page miniatures of enthroned
Sculpture
In 1364 Beauneveu was commissioned by King Charles V to sculpt four marble effigies for new tombs for his paternal grandparents, King
The tombs were designed in the latest style, with brilliant white marble gisants (recumbent effigies representing the deceased) resting on polished black marble slabs (although the tombs themselves were destroyed in 1793, their form is known from late 17th century drawings commissioned by Roger de Gaignières. The surviving gisants are still at St Denis but mounted on plain bases).[3] The effigy of the King is shown as if still alive (representacion au vif) and with its highly personalised features it is clearly in a different league from the other surviving effigies of this group, which seem to have been undertaken by other members of Beauneveu's workshop. Records of payments to Beauneveu from the royal coffers cease in 1366 and the project was then completed by other hands, including his contemporary Jean de Liège.
In 2017, two marble lions from the destroyed tomb of Charles V of France made £9.3 million at a Christie's auction.[4]
One of the projects in which Beauneveu was engaged between 1374 and 1377 was a funeral monument for the Count of Flanders,
During his time in the employ of Jean de Berry (after 1386), Beauneveu is known to have produced several sculptures for the castle at Mehun and for the chapel of the ducal palace at Bourges. The only surviving fragment from Mehun is the large bearded head which is now in the Musée de Louvre.[5] This probably belonged to one of twelve apostle statues that would have stood against the pillars inside the palace chapel at Mehun (similar to the ones in the Ste Chapelle in Paris). Some have argued that the head is the work of Beauneveu's successor, Jean de Cambrai, though the weight of opinion generally favours Beauneveu or his workshop.[6]
The work that Beauneveu carried out on the sculptural and painted decorations at Mehun was so highly regarded by his contemporaries that Jean de Berry's brother, Philip of Burgundy, sent his own court artists Claus Sluter and Jean de Beaumetz to visit the building site in 1393.
Several of the smaller prophet figures from Bourges also survive, dispersed amongst public and private collections.[1] Stylistic differences between these figures serve as a useful reminder that northern European sculpture of this period was normally a team effort. Workshop masters like Beauneveu would set the standard and dictate the overall style but on any large project, one can usually distinguish the presence of multiple distinct craftsmen.[2]
Painting and stained glass
Archives show that during the 1370s, whilst working on the funereal sculptures for the Count of Flanders, Beauneveu was also supplying paintings for the Alderman's hall in his home town of Valenciennes as well as undertaking various commissions for the town councils of Ypres and Mechelen, though none of these works nor any other panel paintings by the artist survive.
In the early 20th century, the newfound interest in Gothic art and the obsession with attributing anonymous works to named artists led some authors to cite Beauneveu as the creator of numerous late 14th century artworks, including the Hakendover Altarpiece and the Parement de Narbonne. The English bibliophile S.C. Cockerell even claimed that Beauneveu had painted the famous 'Westminster' portrait of Richard II, based on a supposed similarity between that work and the Berry Psalter.[7] For a period, Beauneveu's supposed oeuvre was a pawn in the gentlemanly disputes (played out in the pages of the Burlington Magazine) between Cockerell, Martin Conway and Roger Fry over the origins of the French, Netherlandish and English 'schools' of late medieval art. These attributions were however based on nothing more than superficial stylistic resemblances which could equally have applied to almost any work of the International Gothic period. The fact that all these speculative attributions have since been dismissed in the light of more careful scholarship[citation needed] shows the dangers of trying to apply traditional techniques of connoisseurship to the art of this period.
Some of the few examples of Beauneveu's large-scale painting that can be safely attributed on the basis of documentary evidence, as well as stylistic considerations, are the stained glass windows he designed for Jean de Berry's 'Sainte Chapelle' (the palace chapel built in Bourges in emulation of
Notes and references
- ^ a b c By far the must up-to-date and comprehensive account of Beauneveu's life and work is the excellent catalogue from the recent exhibition at the Groeningemuseum; Susie Nash, Till-Holger Borchert and Jim Harris, No Equal in Any Land: Andre Beauneveu, Artist to the Courts of France and Flanders, Paul Holberton Publishing, 2007
- ^ a b Stephen K. Scher, André Beauneveu and Claus Sluter in Gesta, vol.7 (1968), p.12, n.2
- ^ The Portraits of Charles V of France, 1338-1380, Claire Richter Sherman, Penn State, p.66ff 1985
- ^ A Carved marble group of two addorsed lions, by André Beauneveu (circa 1335–1402), 1364–66, Lot 10, "The Exceptional Sale 2017", 6 July 2017, London, King Street
- ^ "Tête d'apôtre". Archived from the original on 2008-07-23. Retrieved 2009-07-06.
- ^ Harry Bober, Andre Beauneveu and Mehun-sur-Yevre in Speculum, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Oct., 1953), pp. 741-753
- ^ W.R.Lethaby The Westminster Portrait of Richard II in the Burlington Magazine, vol.65, No.380 (1934), p.220