The obviously very much admired painting Plaidoiries d’amours is near connected with an extraordinarily luxurious so-called Hours of Catherine of Cleves (Pierpont Morgan Library, New York), a book with a complicated history and with very original illuminations that have been intensively discussed for years in books and articles. Yet its history may in fact be even more complicated than has been imagined and, most interesting, it seems to be possible to date the commission of it to the summer of 1432, when a first part of it probably was written and illuminated in a forced manner trying to have a book finished when Margaret, the eldest of the Cleves sisters, was married to Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria-Munich in Cologne on 12 September 1433.

The Cleves Hours consists now of two volumes bought to the library in New York at different times and from different owners. Together they constitute one of the most extensive known books of its kind, containing, as R G Calkins writes in his in 1979 published carefully detailed analysis, no less than 157 miniatures, many of them arranged in unusual iconographical cycles, and numerous extraordinary borders with remarkable representations of realistic objects and astonishing fantasies. Calkins is aware of the fact that one of the two parts in the library in New York, the so-called Arenberg-Guennol volume, according to the Parisian bookdealer J J Techener existed in the nineteenth century divided, rather abruptly, into two parts. He seems not to have suspected, however, that all what is now preserved in two volumes may never have existed united at all until now in New York, that different parts may have been completed at different times for the use of two, maybe even three of the first married Cleves sisters.

It is interpreted that of the originally 168 miniatures now 11 are missing. Among the lost there was clearly one of St Margaret in the series of women saints. Missing are also initial pages where Margaret of Cleves probably was represented together with the coats of arms of her ancestors and those of Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria, miniatures that later on were no longer wanted. Maybe there also once existed initial pages to a part of Hours for Elisabeth of Cleves, with the arms of her ancestors and those of her consort Count Heinrich of Schwarzburg-Blankenburg, a couple that were married in 1434 at a time when the big book project surely was still in work, because the artist has painted a coin that was produced at the earliest now.

The picture of Duchess Catherine at the opening of the Office of the Virgin was added covering parts of the earlier decoration. The lady who is portrayed in the Crucifixion together with the Virgin and a woman saint is, however, not Catherine but Margaret of Cleves, the owner of a first part of the Cleves Hours, as the artist tells us by adding a marguerite flower to her dress. F Gorissen has in a penetrating analysis tried to identify her as an Ermengard Lochorst. One of the things that have confused him is the letters e d on the purse in the miniature of the Adoration of the Magi. These letters - already before misinterpreted by J Plummer as c d and deciphered as Catherina Duxissa - may instead quite simply mean Ecce Domino. Also the pearls of the red-beaded rosary in this miniature suggest us the name Margaret.

In the miniature of St Cecilia the letters e d are painted several times between wings of falcons as ´Feathers on the Breath of God´, which shows us that the artist, or his religious advisor, had knowledge of St Hildegard of Bingen. Unexplained until now have also been the letters tdl on a bird cage in the miniature of the saints Cornelius and Cyprian, probably meaning that the birds are singing te deum laudamus in praise of God. It has been suggested that it should be Catherine that we see again pictured among the Holy Ghost-Vespers distributing alms. It is, however, more likely that we here see the probably more good-looking Margaret, or possibly their younger sister Elisabeth of Cleves, as Elisabeth is the saint who is especially known for charity. The dove over this lady’s head, symbol of the Holy Ghost, may express a wish for happy motherhood.

After her marriage to the Council Protector Wilhelm, Duchess Margaret accompanied him to Basel and then to Munich. The couple got two sons, Adolph born in 1434 and Wilhelm born in 1435. Wilhelm died after a month and Adolph in 1440. Already at the beginning of the following year Margaret married again, now to Duke Ulrich V of Württemberg, and gave birth to two girls. After their mother’s early death in 1444 these both girls had to become nuns when they were in their 20s. Remembering of Duchess Margaret’s probably not very happy life are today, except the already mentioned Plaidoirie d´amours in Versailles, maybe also some of the motifs in the Cleves Hours. The artist seems to have felt compassion for the girl, who only 16-year-old was chosen to marry an old man, trying to encourage her with miniatures reminding her of home life, of child birth, of the raising of children and other well-known things, very often with a touch of humour.

Reminding of the interests of Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria-Munich are in the Cleves Hours e g the miniature that shows a Roman German king among ecclesiastical and military saints adoring God the Father, and another miniature dealing with unworthy popes and the Council at Basel. Of high interest for the aged Duke Wilhelm was of course the miniature of the Miracle of Bethesda, one of the religious lies that benefited of the fear for old age and death. This miniature has by earlier interpreters been put in connection with the so-called Rohan Book of Hours, because it has a great resemblance to a drawing in Herzog Ulrich Museum in Braunschweig, part of which also is seen reversed in the Rohan Hours. The drawing in Braunschweig, maybe created much earlier, has, however, little likeness to the style of the earlier so-called Rohan Master, who in reality is identical with the famous artist André Beauneveu, as I have tried to show in the article The Master of the Rohan Book of Hours Identified. There were no doubt several copies of this obviously very engaging motif circulating among well-educated artists like the Master of the Cleves Hours.

There is in Musée de Laon in France an old and rather large panel painted on both sides, which has been the right wing of a larger work. On the one side it shows six of the apostles and on the other side an extremely interesting right part of an Annunciation, where the angel is looking up at something, the Virgin or a deity, at a higher level on the missing left wing. Behind the angel there is, beside a woman saint, a whole-length portrait of a donor kneeling among flowers on a grassy knoll, characterized by M Meiss as follows: In his white and gold cope, lined in rose, and his pale olive-green tunic he is a superb figure. The searching, relentless description of his bald head, pug nose and sagging skin, which surrounds bright, fervid eyes, makes this the most memorable of all early French portraits. It is, however, difficult to accept the suggested ascription of this unfortunately damaged and retouched painting to the Rohan Master, i e André Beauneveu, as its style is too different.

It has not been observed earlier that the same man is seen in a small portrait in three-quarter profile, painted in a style reminding of the Van Eyck brothers, that is preserved in the J G Johnson Collection of Philadelphia Museum of Art, there interpreted as Netherlandish School, about 1440. Looking closer at Plaidoirie d’amours we find this man again as Margaret of Cleves’s traitor Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria-Munich. A snail in the upper part of the painting in Laon characterizes the richly dressed man as a pilgrim, visiting some holy place, maybe St Gilles in the south of France, the place to which Robert Campin was sentenced to go on pilgrimage in 1432. In the article Hubert van Eyck, Robert Campin and the Ghent Altarpiece. Misunderstandings and Falsifications I have tried to show that Hubert van Eyck is the same person as Robert Campin. It is a reasonable guess that both the small portrait of Wilhelm and the beautiful part of an Annunciation in Musée de Laon may be original works by Hubert, certifying the high reputation this artist has left to posterity. The woman saint behind the pilgrim Wilhelm is very like the saint behind one of the supposed Cleves sisters on the above mentioned miniature of the Crucifixion. She might be St Gertrude, the protectress of travellers and against mice and rats.

A great many circumstances make it probable that the writing and illuminating of the Cleves Hours took place in Utrecht or in the near region of this city. The artist’s hand has been recognized in several other illuminated books, not always very clearly but yet indicating that he may have produced book illuminations also before those in the Cleves Hours and as long as until the middle of the fifteenth century. As Calkins has shown, the Cleves Master executed nearly all of the many illuminations in the Cleves Hours himself and had only the help of one assistant for some of the decorations in the margins. This must mean that the work progressed during a rather long period and probably was not even completed in 1435, when Duchess Margaret’s consort Wilhelm of Bavaria-Munich died. Margaret’s part of a Cleves Hours may then, quite as her supposed copy of Plaidoirie d’amours, have followed her to the court of Württemberg at her second marriage.

Early signs of contributions by the Cleves Master have been found in a magnificient Missal of Eberhard von Greiffenklau (Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore) and in the so-called Egmont Breviary (The Pierpont Morgan Library, New York). The first-mentioned of these books has been dated to c. 1430-35 and the other to c. 1435-40. They are both illuminated by artists in the circle of the so-called Master of Zweder van Culemborg, who is named after the man who was Bishop of Utrecht from 1425. Zweder left this city in 1431 for the Council of Basel, where he then died already in 1433. The first part of the Egmont Breviary is illuminated in an older style by the so-called Master of Otto van Moerdrecht. He was followed by the Master of Zweder van Culemborg, whos very inventive style is not far from that of the Cleves Master, indicating that the last-mentioned at first worked as his assistant, arriving from a place where Eyckian influences existed mixed with a tradition of drolleries partly originating at the now artistically defunct court in Prague.

Still at this time many of the most talented artists were educated in the highest esteemed artistic profession, that as a goldsmith, a profession that often included knowledge of many other specialities, such as book illumination, design of precious objects and sometimes architecture. Many rulers were on their travels accompanied by artistic servants. Also a bishop may have needed artistic help when living at another place than his normal residence. When Zweder van Culemborg went to the Council of Basel, planning for a rather long stay, he may have been attended by the artistic workshop that assisted him. It is a possibility that it was here that Duke Wilhelm of Bavaria-Munich became acquainted with the young Cleves Master. If it was in Basel that the Cleves Master proceeded with the illumination of the Cleves Hours, he may then have had the possibility to get god help with the planning of this big and expensive work among all the ecclesiastics and artists that were assembled at the Council.

According to old rules Margaret of Cleves must, as already mentioned, have been engaged to someone still in 1423, maybe to Rupert of Berg, as her younger sister Catherine was chosen this year for Arnold of Guelders. It is a possibility that it is the young Rupert that we see dressed in black on a page in the Missal of Eberhard von Greiffenklau kneeling beside a man in ermine-edged dress, who then ought to be his father Adolph of Berg. It may be the same young man who is portrayed in the Egmont Breviary kneeling before St Nicholas, indicating that both these books were commissioned by the same man, maybe Adolph of Berg. If so these illuminations ought to be dated very early in the 1420s.

There is also the possibility that it is Duke Adolph of Cleves that we see together with his likewise named son, a child who originally was educated to try to become Bishop of Cologne. If so the books must have been commissioned in the 1430s. This last guess is supported by the fact that the first known owner of the Egmont Breviary was Georg of Egmont, Bishop of Utrecht, who was a grandson of Arnold of Guelders’s brother Wilhelm of Egmont, governor of Guelders in 1473. Maybe it was the art-interested Marie of Harcourt, widow of Reinald of Jülich in 1423 and in 1426 married to Rupert of Berg, who was the one who arranged the commissions. She was before 1423 so near connected to the Cleves family that she was chosen as patroness when John of Cleves was born in 1419.

Some of the motifs in the Cleves Hours are very near connected with the figures on some playing cards engraved by the so-called Master of the Playing Cards. Anne H van Buren has, when tracing some of these motifs back to the Cleves Hours, pretended that this series of playing cards had at this time become so common that several artist may have had sets of them to reproduce from. But she does not mention that one of the most common of the motifs, the owl, of which we see two variants in the Cleves Hours, exists in a third variant in the Egmont Breviary, probably drawn on free hand, i e in a book maybe illuminated already before the death of Rupert of Berg in 1431, indicating that there among the artists in the circle of Zweder van Culemborg already may have existed models to such fluently drawn animals that later became a conventional part of so many illuminations, many of them copied after the Master of the Playing Cards’ engravings. It is well known that the need for playing cards, as well as for prostitutes, was very big at the Council of Basel, to which the Cleves Master may have gone together with Bishop Zweder van Culemborg.

It is of course tempting to try to identify the Cleves Master with one of the artists in the Utrecht area, of whom the names are known. His reputation must have been considerable, as he was entrusted with expensive commissions from several rich and powerful families. Some of the motifs show him as a person of high moral and with the capacity of feeling empathy for the weak. He must have been a person of the kind that the Guild wanted as a leader. Unfortunately there is not very much known about the Hillebrandt van Reewijk (Hilbrandt die maelre), who between 1456 and 1465 worked for the Buukerk in Utrecht and in 1470 is mentioned as dean of the Guild. To him has K Boon with some probability ascribed the large fresco of the Tree of Jesse in Buukerk. Names may in older times be written rather differently, and the ability of scholars to decipher the writings has not always been good enough. This gives us a reason to be a little inventive when trying to find the place from which the obviously important artist Hillebrandt van Reewijk took his name. The place that I have found most likely is Remisch at Moselle near Luxembourg. If this really was his place of origin, he would then have had Cologne rather close, a city that was not only a dominating religious centre but also a lively centre of the arts and famous for its goldsmiths.

It is a well-known fact that professions in older times, not the least artistic ones, were often inherited from father to son during generations. Suggested as a possible son of Hillebrandt has been the artist Erhard Reuwich, born in Utrecht c.1455 and best known as the artistic member of the pilgrimage to the Holy Land in 1483-84, of which Bernhard of Breydenbach three years later published a book with several often reproduced woodcuts by Reuwich. He is in the book mentioned as a painter von vernunfft vnd hant subtiel vnd behende, and he is, as H Kunze has observed, in fact the first artist who is remembered in a book as its illustrator. A connection between him and the Cleves Master may be seen in a common interest in the representation of exact details, even the interest in book production. Reuwich is e g thought to have been involved in book printing in Mainz and to have contributed to the detailed illustrations of plants in Gart der Gesundheit, published there in 1485. We find his name spelt differently, as e g Rewich and Reeuwyk, which probably does not exclude that his father may have descended from Remisch at Moselle.

Copyright © 2001-2007 Knut Andersson. All rights reserved.