The Emotional Agency of the Portrait

Identification and Pleasure in the Relationship Between a Nobleman and His Portrait in a Late Medieval Book of Hours from The Hague (ms. 76 f 2)

Abstract

Portraits of French nobles embedded within prayer books produced in the late Middle Ages confronted their owners with a visual representation that combined realistic detail with the idealized image of a Christian ruler. Scholarship on this genre has shown that such portraits functioned as markers of ownership, as instruments for spiritual elevation, and as aids in the internalization of personal devotional practice. This article examines the affective agency of portraiture in a late medieval context, focusing on a nobleman’s portrait in a Book of Hours (Le Tavernier, 1455, The Hague, National Library, ms. 76 f. 2), commissioned for Philip the Good (Philippe III le Bon, 1396–1467), Duke of Burgundy of the Valois dynasty. An analysis of the iconography and the artistic strategies that guide the viewer toward mental processes of comparison and memory reveals the portraits’ potential aim: to evoke emotions of identification and pleasure. Furthermore, a discussion of Antoine de La Sale’s mid-fifteenth-century novella Le Petit Jehan de Saintré clarifies that the emotion of pleasure played a central role in the noble individual’s education toward self-improvement, and that this emotion could serve as a stimulus for achieving future goals in life. Examining works of art from this perspective exposes the capacity of the portrait to operate as an affective agent that contributed to shaping both the inner world and the actions of its owner.