Jean Coene IV’s Illuminated Royal Copy of Gaguin’s Chronicle, with Provenance from Diane de Poitiers, Edward Harley, and Ham House
Gaguin, Robert. La Mer des Croniques et Mirouer historial de France. Paris, Nicole de la Barre, 1518.
The unique vellum copy of the 1518 edition of Robert Gaguin’s Mer des Croniques, illuminated throughout in gold and colours by Jean Coene IV and produced for King Francis I of France.
Among the surviving monuments of French Renaissance book culture, few copies combine royal association, illumination, political ambition, and aristocratic provenance at this level. The book remained for centuries in some of the most important European collections, including those of Diane de Poitiers, Anne de Bavière, Edward Harley, and the Earls of Dysart at Ham House.
Edition & Bibliographic Information
Large folio printed on vellum in double columns with commentary surrounding the central text. The volume contains nine illuminated woodcuts, including three full-page compositions and a genealogical folding table, together with numerous illuminated initials in gold on alternating blue and rose grounds. The illustrations and decorative program were illuminated contemporaneously in gold and colours by Jean Coene IV.
The present vellum copy is accompanied by a complete paper copy of the same edition printed for Jean Petit. This companion volume preserves the illustrations in their uncoloured state and allows direct comparison with the illuminated royal copy.
Bound in eighteenth-century English calf from the Harleian Library with gilt spine and borders. Preserved in a modern half-morocco case.
Robert Gaguin and the French Monarchy
Robert Gaguin’s chronicle first appeared in 1495 and rapidly became one of the most influential historical compilations of the French Renaissance. By the time of the present edition in 1518, the text had evolved into an expansive dynastic history culminating in the reign of Francis I.
The political orientation of the work is unmistakable. France is presented not simply as a kingdom among others, but as the principal heir to both the classical and Christian past. This emphasis becomes particularly striking in the context of the rivalry between Francis I and Maximilian I during the years immediately following Marignano and preceding the imperial election.
Nicole de la Barre dedicated the vellum copy directly to Francis I, whose court cultivated precisely this language of historical legitimacy and dynastic magnificence.
Jean Coene IV and Royal Illumination
The illumination was executed by Jean Coene IV, one of the leading illuminators active in Paris during the early sixteenth century and a known artist in royal service.
Rather than merely colouring the printed woodcuts, Coene substantially reworked them. Gold highlighting, tonal modelling, painted architectural details, and extensive overpainting transform many of the compositions into objects that stand much closer to manuscript illumination than to ordinary printed illustration.
This is especially visible on the title page, where the printer’s device was intentionally printed lightly and then largely covered with an elaborate painted composition centered on the royal arms of France supported by angels within an architectural frame.
The larger historical scenes throughout the volume were handled with similar ambition. Armour, banners, battlefields, and courtly settings are enriched with liquid gold and dense colour, while the genealogical material acquires an almost ceremonial character through the illumination.
The companion paper copy makes the extent of Coene’s intervention unusually clear. It preserves the original appearance of the printed edition before illumination and reveals how extensively the royal vellum copy was transformed.
Francis I and Dynastic History
The visual and textual program consistently reinforces the dynastic image of Francis I.
Genealogical sequences connect the Valois monarchy to earlier French kings and ultimately to sacred history itself. Scenes such as the baptism of Clovis emphasize the continuity between Christian monarchy and the French crown, while military imagery places Francis within a lineage of divinely sanctioned rulers.
The book belongs fully to the political culture of the French Renaissance court, where historical writing, illumination, ceremony, and royal representation functioned together.
Provenance
Produced for King Francis I of France. Later in the collections of Diane de Poitiers and Anne de Bavière. Subsequently in the Harleian Library of Edward Harley, 2nd Earl of Oxford, and later at Ham House in the collection of Lionel Tollemache, 4th Earl of Dysart. Sold in the Ham House sale at Sotheby’s in 1938. Later in a French private collection.
Literature
Bechtel G-7; Brunet II, 1439; Davies, Fairfax Murray French 184; Graesse III, 4; Moreau 1518, no. 1823; Van Praet IV, 111; Lecoq; Tenschert XXXVIII.
For a fuller scholarly description and illustrations, see Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, number 22a-b:
Wunderkammer Catalogue 90, Volume I
