page_title: Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux
section_title: Iconography
hierarchical_section_title: Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux / Iconography
caption_attribution_description: English: Jean Pucelle Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux. 1325-28, Metropolitan Museum, New-York
context_page_description: The Hours of Jeanne d'Evreux is an illuminated book of hours in the Gothic style. According to the usual account, it was created between 1324 and 1328 by Jean Pucelle for Jeanne d'Evreux, the third wife of Charles IV of France. It was sold in 1954 to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York where it is now part of the collection held at The Cloisters, and usually on display. The book is very lavishly decorated, mostly in grisaille drawings, and is a highly important example of an early royal book of hours, a type of book designed for the personal devotions of a wealthy lay-person, which was then less than a century old. It has been described as "the high point of Parisian court painting", showing "the unprecedentedly refined artistic tastes of the time".
context_section_description: There are several iconographic features in the Hours of Jeanne d’Evreux that are worth mentioning. Portrayal of black Africans can be found at the beginning of the Passion cycle in two miniatures of the illuminated manuscript. The Passion cycle at Matins opens with the Betrayal, where Malchus, a crouching figure on the left side of the foreground, has features that ethnically differ from the rest of the figures in the image. Because by the time of Pucelle's artistic bloom, Europeans were well aware and familiar with North and East African races and appearances, “the idea of depicting blacks as servants and specifically as tormenters of Christ had become part of the visual iconography of Western art from at least the 12th century.”  As the familiarity with black ethnicity heightened, so did the interest for realism, especially in the visual arts, which allowed for the depiction of characteristic features found in the specific African groups that have caught the attention of Western cultures at this point in time. The colour black is, traditionally, especially in Christianity, associated with sin and evil, which gave all the more reason and logic to depict Africans as the persecutors of Christ. “Although precedents for the depiction of Malchus as a black servant and of blacks persecuting Christ existed in Gothic art, in the early 14th century this iconography remained unusual.”
  In the miniature of Christ Carrying the Cross (61 verso), from what appears to be outside of the frame [it's actually the arm of the man with the blue-tinted beard who is just behind and to Christ's left, as is obvious from the drapery], an arm reaches out to support the cross Christ is carrying at a diagonal angle. Connections can be made to the Hedroit Legend by comparing it to the Strasbourg tympanum where a woman, the wife of the smith who was asked to forge nails for Christ's crucifixion, is holding the three nails she forged while reaching out to support the Cross. Another aspect that exhibits Pucelle's familiarity with the Hedroit legend is the crouching figure on the left of the bas-de-page in Christ Carrying the Cross. The man is holding a hammer which can symbolize the nailing of Christ to the Cross, but it is also possible that the image is a reference to the husband of the woman who forged the nails for Christ's crucifixion, and now he is subjected to carrying all the weight of the guilt he is presented with caused by his wife's actions. 
  Folio 82 verso depicts the Entombment scene, which is heavily influenced by the Italian compositional approach while integrating Northern Gothic figures. A crouching figure, mourning Christ's death with outstretched arms that hold the arm of Christ, resides in the foreground of the Entombment miniature. The figure wears a heavy robe that “obscures the articulation of the body” and is positioned to the right of the central axis. Both her gaze and gesture supporting the limp arm of Christ “lead the eye from the foreground to the middle ground and to the focal point of the composition, the faces of Christ and the Virgin,” while relieving the horizontal line of Christ's recumbent body with her form. Judging from the foreground position, the fact that she is embracing Christ's arm, and her rippled hair exposed by the fallen hood of her cloak, all of which are “compositional and iconographic attributes in accordance with Mary Magdalene’s active role in the Lamentation found in the visual arts and devotional literature”  the figure crouching in the foreground of the Entombment miniature is Mary Magdalene, of which the inclusion, according to Gerard Cames, is a Western innovation of the 12th century. The Annunciation page introduces a couple of compelling themes and symbols that are connected to the central miniature. On the outer bas-de-page margins, the musical angels and the animals, such as rabbits, ape, and squirrel, portrayed in the foreground “have an immediate relevance [to] minutely rendered allusions to fertility, the Fall of man, and Redemption”.  The Betrayal page presents us with a mock-tilt compos
caption: The Entombment of Christ and the Flight to Egypt
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