MINIATURIST, French
(active 1310s)

Estoire del Saint Graal

c. 1316
Manuscript (Royal MS 14 E III), 485 x 335 mm
British Library, London

This manuscript contains the three texts of a religious nature from the Lancelot-Grail Prose Cycle, while those containing Lancelot's courtly exploits and the Merlin legend are omitted from this collection. The decoration consists of 116 miniatures in colours and gold, at the beginning of chapters, as well as border decorations and initials.

The interaction between image and viewer can be seen in illustrations to courtly tales of chivalric love, or romances, like in a lavishly illuminated volume of Arthurian romances made for a wealthy patron in St Omer or Thérouanne in French Flanders. Here, at the beginning of the story of the quest for the Holy Grail, the artist depicts the strange things that were seen during the night by a pagan king called Evelac, not in a dream but in a waking vision. At the climax he sees a beautiful child enter a room without opening the door, an effect subtly evoked with transparent layers of paint.