LIÉDET, Loyset
(b. ca. 1420, Hesdin, d. 1479, Brugge)

Biography

Flemish manuscript illuminator, active first in Hesdin and then in Bruges, where he became a guild member in 1469. His patrons included Philip the Good and Charles the Bold, dukes of Burgundy, and he was perhaps the most prolific illuminator of his time. Loyset Liédet spent most of his career working for the powerful dukes of Burgundy, Philip the Good and his son Charles the Bold. A two-volume copy of a historical text contains his earliest known work as an illuminator, which the scribe recorded as being completed in 1454 in Hesdin, France, presumably Liédet's birthplace. His early work showed the influence of the painter and illuminator Simon Marmion, a French illuminator also active at the Burgundian court.

By 1468 Liédet had moved to Bruges in Flanders, where he became a member of the stationers' guild in 1469. He sometimes worked in grisaille, but his mature style featured bright, almost gaudy, colours and stiff-limbed figures with heavily shaded faces. Numerous court documents give evidence of his career in Bruges, where he received commissions for miniatures in at least fifteen manuscripts between 1468 and 1472. Liédet devoted much of his work around 1470 to illuminating manuscripts for Charles the Bold; in two years, he produced over 400 miniatures for him.

Liédet was among the last of a generation of Flemish illuminators who worked almost exclusively on commission for members of the Burgundian court rather than producing manuscripts for sale on the open market.



© Web Gallery of Art, created by Emil Krén and Daniel Marx.