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Le Livre de la Chasse
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  • Category: Art
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

1- Care of Sick and Injured Dogs
2- Dog and Huntsman Tracking in Copse

3- Hunting Party Pursuing Stag
 

Gaston Phoebus (1331–1391),

Le Livre de la chasse,

France, Paris, ca. 1407
The Morgan Library & Museum;

MS M.1044
Bequest of Clara S. Peck, 1983
Image courtesy of Faksimile Verlag Luzern, www.faksimile.ch

In his treatise Le Livre de la chasse, Gaston Phoebus, a medieval authority on the question of hunting, reviews the various stages that comprise this sport, then a privilege of the aristocracy: the grooming of the dogs, the gathering of the hunters, the tracking, the pursuit, and the eventual slaying. The original is supposed to have been a commission from Philip the Bold. The Morgan holds one of the two most beautiful editions of the treatise, probably a copy ordered by Philip's son, John the Fearless. The library takes advantage of the fabrication of a facsimile, a process which implies the unbounding of the book, to exhibit nearly fifty colorful illuminations, which reveal in vivid, fascinating detail the practices of medieval hunters. The tone swings between cruelty and dainty genre scenes.

 

Exhibition Illuminating the Medieval Hunt

April 18 through August 10, 08

The Morgan Library & Museum, New York

Exhibition page on www.themorgan.org