The Mystical Unicorn Hunt of Saint Guinefort

Named for their unusual page color, black Books of Hours occupy a unique and striking niche within the world of illuminated manuscripts. Richly decorated, rare, and fragile – perhaps the most well known example (or at least the easiest to view, albeit digitally) is the Morgan Library’s Black Hours (MS M.493) a rare complete text from the 1480’s produced in Belgium. 

These striking works feature a common design theme – jet black pages that were often dyed with corrosive iron gall ink. The darkened pages presented a unique background for the artist^* and the luminous illustrations often featured both gold and silver paint applications. It also seems in many cases the pages have become brittle, with the ink flaking off and taking the top pigments with it, leading to conservation and display challenges.^*,†

The source text I chose to emulate was The Black Hours of Charles the Bold/Galeazzo Maria Sforza (it appears that the lay title varies depending on the country of origin of the article addressing the work) – to simplify things I’ll refer to it by the identification used by the institution housing it – Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, or the Austrian National Library, where it is referred to as Cod. 1856.

There isn’t a lot of documentation out there on this particular work in English, and it proved to be a challenge for me to track down sources for actual images of the work. However, what I could find outlines that this book was likely produced in Bruges, Belgium (similar to the Morgan Library’s Black Hours) within the mid-15th century for Charles the Bold^¶. 

The text appears to be a standard Book of Hours with no real evidence of personalization or editing that would give a hint to the owner, other than a later addition of the of the arms of Galeazzo Maria Sforza – done after the book came into his possession, likely as a gift from Charles^†.

We know from our previous forays into Books of Hours that this personalization might include specific calendar dates for regionally popular saints, incorporated portraits of the intended recipients of the books, elaborate coats of arms integrated into the design, or suffrages to personally or regionally beloved saints. For example, The Hours of Catherine of Cleves at the Morgan Library includes portraits of Catherine herself, most significantly in the opening of the Hours of the Virgin.

The beauty of Cod. 1856 is the uniqueness of the materials and the luminosity with which the gold and pigments shine on the black page.

It includes richly illustrated details of scrolling foliage, birds, and symbolic plants among miniatures that seem to be selectively focused on the figures within and more loosely rendered settings and backgrounds which are enhanced by the dramatic black.

Portions of the text can be viewed on the website of the Austrian National Library^‡ where they have photographs of both actual pages and facsimiles. I am guessing the fragility of the work makes it almost impossible to document the entirety of this text – it makes one wonder how a work so fragile can be digitized safely.

For my own page, I combined the drama of the materials with the drama of an old favorite in medieval symbolism – the unicorn hunt. 

In the scene depicted we find Guinefort rushing towards the unicorn, distracting the beast as the hunter creeps behind him with his spear. This is an apocryphal tale where we see the knight who would eventually slay Guinefort on a fantastic hunt with his faithful hound.

The imagery is inspired by the Unicorn Hunt Tapestries from The Cloisters^** specifically, and more broadly from unicorn hunt symbolism of the time. The unicorn was also incorporated into Christian iconography as a symbol of Christ, and sometimes the hunter was syncretized with the archangel Gabriel^††.

This double-meaning adds a rich mysticism to the overall scene – with Guinefort hunting and helping to capture the holiness of Christ, and the hunter in a role almost as Judas. For without his act of killing Guinefort, the dog would not become a martyr.

As a final detail, this depiction of Guinefort is modeled after Bashaw^‡‡, a faithful Newfoundland owned by the Earl of Dudley and painstakingly sculpted in stone by Matthew Cotes Wyatt. Currently on display at the Victoria and Albert Museum, his sculpture significantly includes a bronze cobra that has been felled by the courageous hound.

I really enjoyed the creation of this piece, where I got to dive into the world of shell gold as a material – I find it so much more forgiving than gold leaf and the luminosity it adds to the work is unmatched by imitation materials – and exploring some of my favorite medieval themes was an added bonus.

As a final note of interest – Wyatt’s sculpture has been confused with the Newfoundland sculptures by Le Chiesne that feature the dog protecting a child by killing an attacking snake – but that’s another blog post.