MINIATURIST, French
(active 1530s)

Book of Hours

1530s
Manuscript
Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris

This miniature is the portrait of Marguerite d'Angoulème (1492-1549), the wife of Henry II of Navarre. Marguerite d'Angoulème (Marguerite de Navarre) was the sister of François d'Angoulème, the future king François I. Her miniature portrait is in a tiny Book of Hours owned by François I. She is represented as a penitent holding a mirror, an allusion to "Le Miroir de l'Âme Pécheresse" (The Mirror of the Sinful Soul) which the cultured princess had written and published in 1531.