AGNES SOREL 



ture the Visit of the Magi Charles the Seventh, 

 accompanied by his Scottish guard, and with the 

 Castle of Loches in the background, himself 

 kneels as one of the kings before the Virgin, 

 here also represented in the likeness of Agnes. 

 And so on, throughout the series, in many of 

 the scenes of the Virgin's life we find her bearing 

 the features of Agnes until an older and sadder 

 type becomes necessary in the Crucifixion, the 

 Entombment, and the Announcement of the Death 

 and the Death of the Virgin. When, however, 

 death has transfigured age and sorrow, the like- 

 ness of Agnes reappears in the Assumption, 

 and Coronation, and, the crowning glory, the 

 Enthronement of the Virgin. 



In a Book of Hours, at Munich, painted 

 about 1500 A.D. for Jacques Coeur's grandson 

 (in part perhaps by Jean Bourdichon, the artist 

 of the superb Book of Hours of Anne de 

 Bretagne now in the Bibliotheque Nationale, or 

 at least by some pupil or follower of his), there 

 are three miniatures that seem of special interest 

 in connection with Agnes Sorel. One is a 

 representation of the Virgin of the Annunciation, 

 and another that of the Madonna with the Holy 

 Child. In both these the features of the Virgin 

 Mother appear to faintly echo those of Agnes as 

 we know her, as the crowned and ermined queen 

 in the picture at Antwerp. Still more interest- 

 ing is the third miniature, giving a view here 

 used as a setting for the Procession to Calvary 

 of the front of Jacques Coeur's stately dwelling 



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