Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good

Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good is a presentation miniature believed to have been painted by the Early Netherlandish artist Rogier van der Weyden (or if not actually from his hand then certainly by his workshop to his designs). It decorates the frontispiece to the Chroniques de Hainaut, MS KBR.9242, Jean Wauquelin's French translation of a three-volume history of the County of Hainaut originally written in Latin by the 14th-century Franciscan historian Jacques de Guyse.

The majority, if not all, of the figures (described in the text as "Chevaliers, conseillers, et chambellans") are portraits of historical figures. The decorative border of the presentation miniature includes the arms of the various territories ruled by Philip, which he had considerably expanded, interspersed with his personal emblem of sparks being struck from a flint.

The translation had been commissioned by Philip the Good, and the manuscript that both contains the miniature and shows it being presented was at that point the only one existing. From the court accounts the progress of the translation (though not the decoration of the manuscript) can be traced, and the miniature is presumed to date from around the time of the actual presentation to Philip in March 1448. The entire set of three volumes are now in the Royal Library of Belgium.

It is well preserved, and the only known manuscript miniature by van der Weyden.

Chronicles of Hainaut

The "Chronicles of Hainaut" is an illuminated manuscript in three volumes, tracing the history of the county of Hainaut to the end of the 14th century. The text of Philip's book is a French translation made c 1446-50 by Jean Wauquelin, from the Annales historiae illustrium principum Hannoniæ, a three-volume Latin work produced by Jacques de Guyse c 1390–96. The translation was commissioned by Simon Nockart, a councilor to Philip the Good, as a means to legitimise Philip's territorial claims. It is now in the Bibliothèque royale de Belgique in Brussels. It contains ten other miniatures.

Description

Figures

The frontispiece praises the contemporary fashion at Burgundian court, which it claims is ahead even of that of the French. Broadly the miniature can be divided into three horizontal sections, with four clerics positioned to the left, two members of royalty and Wauquelin at the center, and eight advisers and courtiers to the right. The main figures are dressed in finely tailored gowns, with pipe folds extending from the shoulders, that become tightly girdled at the waist, before they spread out into the skirt. In most cases the skirts end before the knees. Most wear a bodice, which is open from the neck to waist, and worn over a white shirt. The tops of their sleeves rise unnaturally over their shoulders, most likely due to the support of small cushions (mahewters) place inside the garments.

The men's head-dress is intended to denote their social position, with the highest ranked wearing variants of the chaperon, a garment then at the peak of its popularity. Philip the Good wears a black looped chaperon, Rolin a less exuberant version; only he has sufficient status to wear his chaperon indoors in the Duke's presence. Apart from the Bishop of Tournai, standing next to Rolin, all the other men are bare-headed, even Philip's young heir, despite the fact that several of them are high-ranking intimates who, like the Duke, wear the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. But as far as can be seen, all have hats. The young Charles the Bold, then around 12 or 13 years old wears his patte, or strap, wrapped round the back of his neck, and the man on the extreme right, identified as Jean de Croÿ, has his bourrelet further than usual down his back, with the patte hanging from it. The man in grey seems to be carrying a different type of hat made of black fur, but all the other ones visible are also chaperons, mostly with the cornettes to the front.

Philip stands in front of his throne positioned under a golden or salmon coloured canopy or baldachin, lined with what appears to be green satin. He is, as usually in depictions of him, dressed almost entirely in black. He wears a black burlet (rolled) chaperon with the cornette wrapped around this neck. He holds a small hammer as a symbol of his authority in his left hand, and a baton of power in his right, while a dog sleeps at his feet. His tight chaussembles (leggings) end in long pouleines (the type of shoe with very long, pointed toes). His clothes are lined with brown fur, which is turned out to trim the cuffs and hem. His son Charles de Charolais stands to his right, dressed in a salmon gown, foreshadowing the crown he is due to inherit. Jean Wauquelin kneels before Philip, presenting a large book bound in brown leather; his translation of the Chroniques de Hainaut which he had completed in 1446. Van der Weyden some took artistic licence here, probably to vary the tonality of the dark colours; the surviving Chroniques bound in black satin.

Philip's preference for black is imitated by a number of the other men to the right, particularly the older nobleman at the head of the group, who is generally identified as Antoine I de Croÿ, first chamberlain of the ducal household. Most of the chaperons are black, although the man in blue has one in salmon-pink; black was having one of its earliest periods of being the most fashionable colour at the time.

The miniature bears a close resemblance to the presentation miniature by Simon Marmion for Philip's copy of the Grandes Chroniques de France, in which Philip accepts many of the same figures present in the Hainaut miniature. A book for Charles the Bold of 1468–70 includes a rather crude and simplified version of van der Weyden's scene.

Borders

The richly decorated borders of the miniature detail Philip's territorial control over large areas of Northern Europe. The top of the page show his arms, mottoes, and devices, while along the sides are the arms of the different territories under his rule. They are laid out with duchies on the left side (including Burgundy, Lotharingia and Limbourg), and counties on the right (including Flanders, Artois and Franche-Comté).

原文较长，这里只摘了前面一部分，摘自英文维基百科「Jean Wauquelin presenting his 'Chroniques de Hainaut' to Philip the Good」（暂时没有中文条目，下面是英文原文），按 CC BY-SA 4.0 使用，去掉了参考文献、外部链接等尾部小节和表格，其余文字未作改动。