Simon Marmion

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Abbot Guillaume Fillastre presents the Grandes Chroniques de France to Philip the Good; the kneeling figure in green may be a self-portrait by Marmion. (1450s)
Part of the St Bertin altarpiece, Berlin

Simon Marmion (c. 1425 – 24 or 25 December 1489) was a French and

Early Netherlandish painter of panels and illuminated manuscripts. Marmion lived and worked in what is now France but for most of his lifetime was part of the Duchy of Burgundy
in the Southern Netherlands.

Life

Like many painters of his era, Marmion came from a family of artists, and both his father, Jean, and his brother Mille were painters. Marmion is recorded as working at Amiens between 1449 and 1454, and then at Valenciennes from 1458 until his death. He was patronized by Philip the Good, the Duke of Burgundy from 1454 when he was one of several artists called to Lille to work on the decorations for the Feast of the Pheasant.[1] He was employed by several members of the ducal family, including Charles the Bold and Margaret of York. He was called "the prince of illuminators" by a near contemporary. Three years after his death his widow, Jeanne de Quaroube, married his pupil, the painter Jan Provoost, who on her death inherited the considerable Marmion estate.

Although best known for his illuminated manuscripts, Marmion also produced portraits and other paintings,

National Gallery (London).[3] There is a Mass of Saint Gregory in Toronto, and a Lamentation of Christ in the Metropolitan Museum of Art,[4] three works in Philadelphia
, and several others elsewhere. Stylistically he lies between his French and Flemish contemporaries, with a Flemish innovation in composition and landscape. His perspective is usually technically sound, but the proportions of his figures are often awkward, and their poses rather stiff.

Manuscripts

His masterpiece, a

St Petersburg. This has 25 large miniatures (215 x 258 mm) and 65 smaller ones, ranging in style from brilliantly-coloured battle-scenes to some in an innovative near-grisaille style, with just touches of subdued colour. The illustrations reflect the text, which is an unusual version stressing Netherlandish events, and apparently intended to justify Philip the Good's claim to the French throne.[5] The same library has a medical text with a fine presentation miniature with another portrait of Philip the Good, and heraldic borders.[6]

His manuscript of

also have fine books of hours by Marmion.

The Visions of Tondal
, detail.

The "Simon Marmion Hours" (not the only manuscript so called) in the

Hieronymous Bosch
.

Identity questioned

Between the late 19th century and the mid-20th century, art historians attributed various works to Marmion. However, from 1969, a scholarly counter-movement led by art historian Antoine de Schruyver suggested that Marmion's body of work came from a number of hands.[13] At its largest figures, Marmion's oeuvre amounts to some 40 each of manuscripts and panel paintings, but though his life and his reputation are both covered by contemporary documentation, he cannot be clearly connected by documents to specific surviving works - most of the biographical documentation relates to his ownership of real estate property.[10]

The circumstantial evidence is strong: the abbot at Saint-Omer (near Valenciennes) who commissioned the St. Bertin altarpiece, Guillaume Filastre, also commissioned the Petersberg Chroniques and another MS by the same artist. Marmion is recorded as producing a breviary ordered by Philip the Good between 1467 and 1470, and a detached miniature in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Lehman Collection) may come from this.[14]

Notes

  1. ^ Campbell, 300
  2. ^ Strictly, the shutters normally used to cover up a carved altarpiece. The "inside" side is in grisaille.
  3. ^ Campbell, 300-309
  4. ^ Kren & S McKendrick, 100-102, 107 Metropolitan
  5. ^ Voronova & Sterligov, 120
  6. ^ Voronova & Sterligov, 118-119
  7. ^ Kren & S McKendrick, 98
  8. ^ British Library
  9. ^ T Kren, in Kren & S McKendrick, 330
  10. ^ a b Harthan, 148
  11. ^ Illus. Harthan, 150
  12. ^ Harthan, 148, illus. 147
  13. ^ JSTOR The Case of Simon Marmion: Attributions & Documents, Sandra Hindman, Zeitschrift für Kunstgeschichte, Vol 40, H. 3/4 (1977), pp. 185-204.
  14. ^ Campbell, 300 Metropolitan, who are more confident of the identification

References

  • Campbell, Lorne. National Gallery Catalogues (new series): The Fifteenth Century Netherlandish Paintings, 1998,
  • Harthan, John, The Book of Hours, pp. 146–151, 1977, Thomas Y Crowell Company, New York,
  • T Kren & S McKendrick (eds), Illuminating the Renaissance: The Triumph of Flemish Manuscript Painting in Europe, Getty Museum/Royal Academy of Arts, pp. 98–116 & passim, 2003,
  • T. Voronova and A Sterligov, Western European Illuminated Manuscripts (in the St Petersberg Public Library), pp. 118–133, 2003, Sirocco, London

Further reading

  • Kren, Thomas, ed. Margaret of York, Simon Marmion, and The Visions of Tondal. Malibu, CA, J. Paul Getty Museum, 1992.

Short books on individual MS:

External links