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St Louis Psalter.

Richly illuminated Psalter that belonged to King Louis IX (can 1297). An inscription of c. 1400 at the beginning of the book records his ownership and that the Psalter (210*145 mm; Paris, Bib. N., MS. lat. 10525) passed to Charles V of France who gave it to his daughter, Marie, a Dominican nun at Poissy. It probably dates from between 1254, when Louis returned from crusade, and his death in 1270. The personal nature of the book is reflected in the Calendar, which records the dates of death of his grandfather, Philip II Augustus (reg 1180–1223), his parents Louis VIII (reg 1223–6) and Blanche of Castile, and his brother, Robert I, Count of Artois (1237–50), who was killed on crusade in Egypt. The Psalter text is preceded by 78 miniatures illustrating the Old Testament from Genesis to Kings. The choice of subjects may reflect contemporary political interests while the Old Testament figures are used as examples of virtue and vice. The initials for the first psalms read at daily Matins and Sunday Vespers are filled with scenes of King David at prayer and literal illustrations of the opening verse of the psalm. They are painted in the elegant style of Parisian illumination characteristic of the last two decades of Louis’s reign, with tall figures in mannered poses and with refined gestures (see GOTHIC, §IV, 5(ii)). The style is closely related to contemporary Parisian sculpture, particularly that in the south transept portal of Notre-Dame. The Old Testament scenes are set beneath architectural canopies, which show the repertory of motifs typical of the developed Rayonnant style, also evident in the southern transept of Notre-Dame. A closely related manuscript, the Isabella Psalter (Cambridge, Fitzwilliam, MS. 300), was produced by the same workshop for a female member of the royal family.

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  Reproduced by kind permission of Macmillan Publishers Limited, publishers of The Grove Dictionary of Art.
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