OF SIX MEDIÆVAL WOMEN
—representing Etienne Chevalier himself, in the attitude of prayer, his patron saint, St. Stephen, beside him. There seems reason, however, to suppose that this offering of Etienne's was in fact a triptych, and that the missing wing pictured his young wife, then lately dead (1452). If this was so, Etienne and his wife would have appeared in adoration on either side of the Queen of Heaven, here personated by Agnes Sorel, thus bringing the panel with Etienne's portrait into harmony with the central panel, which otherwise it fails to be.
Of the miniatures at Chantilly, the whole series of which forms a most tender and rare tribute to wife and friend, only brief mention can here be made of those concerning Agnes. The most simple and beautiful in sentiment and design is that of the Annunciation, in which the seated Virgin, in the likeness of Agnes Sorel, with bowed head receives the angel's message. The scene is laid in a Gothic chapel (perhaps the Sainte Chapelle with slight adaptations to suit the artist's fancy),[1] with statues of the Prophets all around, and Moses, holding the Books of the Law, as the central figure of the group. This assemblage of Old Testament seers certainly typified the Old dispensation, whilst the Annunciation prefigures the New, and to us the whole may not unfitly form an allegory of the new order which Agnes Sorel was to help to bring about. In another minia-
- ↑ Cf. Grandes Chroniques de France, fol. 292, Bib. Nat.
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