Les Enluminures

Name: Les Enluminures
Address: 1 Rue Jean jacques Rousseau, Paris, 75001, FR
Telephone: +33142601558

Accueil
France
Paris
Les Enluminures

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PARIS- 21-22 Galerie de Montpensier, Jardin du Palais-Royal, Paris
CHICAGO- 980 North Michigan Ave. www.lesenluminures.com
www.textmanuscripts.com

Suite 1330, Chicago

Please contact us to arrange an appointment (Open 9-5 pm) or visit us at the Paris gallery during exhibitions.

07/10/2026

👻💀💍Long before Halloween turned skeletons into symbols of fright, this tiny skull was reminding its wearer of something far more serious. This striking English memento mori ring, made in the late 16th or early 17th century, places a black and white enameled skull at the center of its quatrefoil bezel, surrounded by the haunting words: “Die to live.” More than a macabre decoration, the skull served as a powerful reminder of the inevitability of death and the fleeting nature of earthly life. The inscription makes the message even more direct: the wearer was called to relinquish worldly attachments, accept mortality, and aspire to eternal life. For its original wearer, this tiny skull was not simply a symbol of death, it was a reminder of how to live.

Memento Mori ring
England, late 16th- early 17th century
Gold, enamel
Weight: 5.1g; US size 6 1/2; UK size N

01/10/2026

🐰Whisper ‘Rabbit, Rabbit, Rabbit’ for luck and luxury. This month's featured pieces conjure up the Halloween spirit, exploring themes of remembrance, death, and the grotesque. 🎃

28/09/2026

Beautiful on the outside, deeply personal within, this pendant was made to be opened and discovered. 🔓✨
The tradition of miniature diptychs, triptychs or even polyptychs with intricately enameled scenes from the Life of Christ, such as this one, goes back to the Middle Ages. The small size allowed these to be handheld when praying or meditating. During travels it would have been carried in a pouch and would have acted as a miniature altarpiece. The owner of this rare, jeweled pendant would have worn this piece in public, closed and perhaps outwardly flaunting its beautiful agate, but in private when touched and opened to reveal the hidden scene, it became a vehicle for an intimate form of worship and prayer.

Devotional Pendant with Scenes of the Annunciation and Crucifixion
Gold, enamel, banded grey and white agate on brown
Probably Italy, c. 1500
Weight: 21.2 g.; Dimensions 29.5 mm. x 37.6 mm. x 11.5 mm.

24/09/2026

What if the most important part of this sparkling cross was the part you couldn’t see? ✨✝👀Made in the Balkans, probably Bulgaria, in the 18th–19th century, this gilded silver reliquary pendant is made in the shape of a Greek cross. Covered in intricate filigree, tiny silver globules, and colorful glass-paste gems it catches the light from every angle. But beneath all that glitter is a secret: the cross was made to hold a sacred relic (now missing). Through the openwork design, the relic may have been glimpsed only in fragments, while a hinged backplate could be opened to reveal what was inside. The cross would have been a piece of an ensemble worn strung across the shoulder in a manner reminiscent of a soldier's bandolier. This cross was more than an ornate accessory, it was a powerful amulet of protection, bringing together beauty, mystery and faith in one remarkable object.

Reliquary Cross Pendant
Balkans, 18th-19th century
Gilded silver, glass pastes
Weight 40.7 grams; dimensions 74 × 15 × 10 mm

17/09/2026

Look more closely 🧐 What first appears to be an elaborate initial holds a carefully concealed scene. This unusual initial ‘R’ from a Florentine Gradual, made around 1390–1400 and newly attributed to Don Simone Camaldolese and workshop, depicts the Empty Tomb in a strikingly reductive way. Unlike the more common depictions of the Easter Resurrexi introit, which show Christ above the sleeping Roman soldiers or the Three Marys at the tomb, this miniature leaves Christ and the witnesses out entirely. Instead, the artist condenses the Resurrection to the tomb itself; it is closed below, open above, and hidden within the letter ‘R.’ Brightly colored foliage, gold leaf, a dark ground, and delicate plants frame the carefully modeled tomb, creating an image that is both richly decorative and remarkably restrained.

🖼Don Simone Camaldolese (active 1379-1405) and Workshop
The Empty Tomb, initial ‘R’ from a Gradual
(leaf 488 x 368 mm.; initial 204 x 168 mm.)
Italy, Florence, c. 1390-1400

Click the link in our bio for more information

Or visit our gallery at 📍980 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1330 during to experience the Middle Ages in person!

15/09/2026

Ever feel like history is staring right back at you? 👁️✨ Meet the 15th-century "Masters of the Beady Eyes," an anonymous group of manuscript illuminators active in Ghent and Bruges in modern-day Belgium from roughly 1440 to 1470. They are named for their unique way of drawing human eyes using firm, dark lines combined with a small, bead-like dot or disk for the pupil.

This manuscript, with its imposing size and exceptionally like-new condition make this book entirely unusual among surviving Books of Hours. Elegant calligraphy and delicate penwork, surrounded by wide clean margins on untrimmed pages, gracefully accommodate the numerous brightly colored paintings by the Master of the Beady Eyes.

Book of Hours (use of Rome)
In Latin, illuminated manuscript, on parchment
Southern Netherlands, Ghent, c. 1460
With 24 miniatures by the Master(s) of the Beady Eyes

Click the link in our bio to learn more

Or visit our gallery at 📍980 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1330 during Chicago Exhibition Week for a closer look!

11/09/2026

Beginning next week our Magnificent Mile gallery will be participating in the fourth annual Chicago Exhibition Week, bringing together a curated selection of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, miniatures, and jewelry in a special public exhibition.

Visit us on Michigan Avenue to explore up close how these treasures were made, used, loved, and collected.

🕰Public Hours: Sept. 14 - Sept. 20, 10 AM – 5 PM
📍980 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1330

Learn more about CXW26 at the link in our bio

09/09/2026

Opening Tomorrow!

SAFE SPACES: A COLLABORATION BETWEEN ATSUSHI KAGA AND LES ENLUMINURES

SAFE SPACES brings together Atsushi Kaga’s imaginative worlds and the rich visual tradition of medieval illuminated manuscripts. Though separated by centuries, these universes invite intimate contemplation through luminous colour, gold leaf, fantastical creatures, and immersive visual storytelling.

Address: 21-22 Galeries de Montpensier, Jardin du Palais Royal, 75001 Paris

08/09/2026

Guillaume de Lorris & Jean de Meun, with interpolations of Gui de Mori:
Roman de la Rose
In French, Illuminated manuscript on parchment
Southern Netherlands, Tournai, c. 1390

📖🇫🇷🥀The Roman de la Rose (or the Romance of the Rose) was one of the most widely read and debated of medieval works. Begun around 1230 by Guillaume de Lorris and left incomplete, the poem was taken up some forty years later by Jean de Meun, a scholar and translator resident in Paris. This copy, written in Old French and illuminated by Jean Semont, tells the story of the Lover who falls asleep and dreams of finding his love, symbolized by the Rose. Some 95 manuscripts are known from the second half of the 14th century, when this copy was made, and it appealed to a wide range of social classes and levels of education. The present manuscript differs from those in being one of only 19 copies to contain additions and moralizing revisions made by a third author, Gui de Mori, a Picard cleric.

Click the link in our bio to learn more about this rare and splendid seminal text of French literature.

Or, visit the gallery at 📍980 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1330 during to view it in person!

02/09/2026

Ring with Cameo of Mary Queen of Scots
Gold, onyx
Cameo: England or Scotland, 2nd half 16th century
Ring late 18th century
Weight 13.7 g.; US Size 5 1/4; UK Size K ¼; Circumference: 49.95 mm.

💍👑This cameo depicts Mary, Queen of Scots (1542–1587), one of the most compelling and tragic figures of the Renaissance. Queen of Scotland from infancy and briefly Queen Consort of France, she was forced to abdicate the Scottish throne in 1567, fled to England in 1568, and spent nineteen years in captivity before being executed for treason by order of her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I. Her turbulent life, marked by political intrigue, betrayal, and tragedy, made her an enduring object of romanticized admiration for generations to come. Jewelry related to Mary, Queen of Scots functioned not only as personal adornment but also as a discreet expression of political and religious allegiance.

Click the link in our bio for more information on this stunning ring
or stop by our gallery at 📍980 N Michigan Ave, Ste 1330 during to view it for yourself!

Adresse

1 Rue Jean Jacques Rousseau
Paris
75001

Téléphone

+33142601558

Site Web

https://linktr.ee/les_enluminures, https://www.textmanuscripts.com/, https://www.lesenluminures.com/

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