LE TAVERNIER, Jean
Flemish illuminator. He seems to have specialized in the illustration of chronicles and similar texts and to have undertaken commissions principally for the Burgundian ducal court. In 1434 Le Tavernier became a Master in Tournai, where he was still working in 1440 when he took on an apprentice. He contributed to the decorations for the ‘banquet du faisan’ organized in Lille in 1454 by Philip the Good, Duke of Burgundy, for which Le Tavernier’s payment was higher than average. In the same year he was resident in Oudenaarde and received payment from Philip the Good for 230 grisailles and 2 full-colour miniatures in a Book of Hours belonging to the Duke, and for illuminating a ‘Livre de Godeffroy de Buillon’. In 1460 Le Tavernier received a payment for ‘certaines histoires de blanc et de noir’ (grisailles executed in the first volume of a ‘Livre de Charlemaigne’) and an advance payment for illustrations to be produced in the second volume of this work.
The manuscript, the Cronicques et conquestes de Charlemagne (Bibliothèque Royale de Belgique, Brussels, MSS 9066-8), a text compiled and written by David Aubert, serves as a point of departure in defining Le Tavernier’s style. It was originally in two volumes, the second of which is now divided (MSS 9067-8). The original patron was Jean de Créqui, as indicated in the colophon of the first volume; yet by the time of completion the work was intended for Philip the Good, who is named as the recipient in the colophon of the second volume. The date of completion is given in this volume as 1458, and the whole work is listed in the inventory of the Burgundian library of 1467: the payment of 1460 fits within this chronological framework. In the frontispiece of the first volume (fol. 11r), the presentation of the book to the Duke of Burgundy is shown only in a background scene and the Duke’s coat of arms is incorporated almost furtively on a town-gate in the miniature: this is unusual for a high-quality manuscript of this type and may be connected with the change of patron.
