The manuscript also contains 17 lively miniatures attributed to an anonymous painter in the circle of the Master of Charles V. The Livre des fais de Jacques de Lalaing is considered one of the greatest secular manuscripts produced during the last flowering of Flemish illumination in the second quarter of the 16th century. The vivid illuminations, rendered with remarkable detail and vibrant colors, extol the ideals symbolizing the age of chivalry.
”The Getty Museum's collection is especially strong in manuscripts of the northern Renaissance, including a number of outstanding masterworks." says Timothy Potts, director of the J. Paul Getty Museum. "With its engaging narrative of a medieval knight’s chivalrous adventures, the Lalaing manuscript brings into the collection a secular work that rivals in artistry, vivacity, and condition our famous devotional illuminations of this period.”
Potts continues, “Of the eight known manuscripts of the Livre des fais de Jacques de Lalaing, only four are illuminated, the Getty version being clearly the most accomplished and sumptuous. For manuscript enthusiasts ̶ and anyone interested in medieval times– this work has everything: the gripping tale of an all-conquering knight, supreme artistry, and a miraculous survival through some 500 years in the same family. It is sure to be much asked for and admired in our galleries.”
The text and illuminations of the new acquisition relate the adventurous life of Jacques de Lalaing (1421-1453), a celebrated knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece and the most famed tournament fighter of the Middle Ages. The miniatures concentrate on Jacques’s unparalleled feats of arms, as he made his way across Europe challenging and defeating most of the prominent knights of his day.
The manuscript’s illuminations begin with a magnificent frontispiece by Simon Bening showing the text’s main author, Jean Lefèvre de Saint-Remy, laboring over the text in his study. This exceptional work displays the exquisite naturalism and bold compositional design that characterize Bening’s style at its very best. The image is defined by the sunlight that spills through the large window at left, creating tantalizing effects of light and shadow across surfaces that vary from stone and wood to fabric and fur. “Bening was responsible for many of the most lauded manuscripts produced during the period, but he worked on relatively few secular works. The frontispiece in Livre des fais de Jacques de Lalaing is among his most accomplished and monumental illuminations,” says Elizabeth Morrison, senior curator of the Department of Manuscripts.
Simon Bening has long been considered the last great manuscript illuminator of the northern Renaissance, and his style dominated production in the first half of the sixteenth century. He specialized in the illumination of prayer books, filled with expansive landscapes, vivid narratives, and his hallmark fleck-like brushwork. Bening also created numerous independent paintings on panel and parchment, which influenced illuminators and panel painters across northern Europe. This is the fourth work by Bening to enter the Getty Museum’s collection, and the first on a secular theme.
The manuscript’s remaining 17 miniatures are attributed to an anonymous painter within the circle of the Master of Charles V, who was the leading Flemish illuminator of the period after Bening. The illuminations are devoted to Jacques’s prodigious victories on the tournament circuit, replete with wondrous chivalric imagery of jousts, festivals, hunts, and battles. The painterly quality seen in the handling of the figures and landscapes, the bright colors, and the dramatically conceived compositions lend the manuscript an exceptional freshness and vivacity. The miniatures revel in the