Burdened Tyger scroll for Lady Johanna le Mercer

I sell products with part of this scroll on them.

By His Lordship François Thibault, Oct. 2001 to June 2003 (our twins were born in January 2002...). My seventeenth scroll.

Text

Our Kingdom is rich in excellent festivities, and well do We know that they depend upon the efforts of many. Our recent Twelfth Night celebration, held in Nordenhalle this thirteenth day of January past, was outstanding, and no one could hope to name all those who made it a reality. Yet do We think it meet to honor certain of Our Subjects whose work was especially noteworthy. Thus do We, Andreas and Isabella, Rex et Regina Orientales, award the Order of the Burdened Tyger to Lady Johanna le Mercer, for her work in running the gaming. Done by Our Hands, this third day of February, Anno Societatis XXXV, at Carolingia Celebrates the Arts, in Our Barony of Carolingia.

Construction notes

Sparser than usual this time; I didn't keep notes on all the colors I used.

Calligraphy

Hand

Taken from the Isabella Breviary (British Library, Additional MS 18851; I used the Backhouse reproduction, ISBN 0-7123-0269-7, which I will refer to as BIB).

Ink

Winsor & Newton Black India Ink

Nibs

Main text: 3/4 mm Brause. Capital: 3 mm Brause.

Spacing

4 mm minim height, 8 mm spacing between baselines. Capital is 3.2 cm square.

Illumination

Sources

The layout is taken from the Isabella Breviary, ff. 184v-185 (reproduced on p. 35 of BIB). The flowers in the borders are mostly from f. 173, I think.

The scene on the left-hand page is based primarily on the scene of angels of the "new song" singing to David and his musicians of the "old song", from the Isabella Breviary (f. 164). I changed the scene so that the musicians were instead playing games (to honor Lady Johanna's work running the gaming), and, instead of angels, we have a dove, representing Queen Isabella (according to Baron Sir Fum, who used the imagery in the song I wrote out for him). The servant pouring wine is from the Marriage at Cana scene from the Saluces Hours, (Add. MS 27697, f. 49, reproduced on p. 55 of Backhouse, Books of Hours, ISBN 0-7123-0052-X). This is the third time now I've used this figure.

Misc

Paper

Aquarelle Arches Hot Press, 12" by 16".

Margins

Roughly 1" on each side; gutter is 1". "Roughly" because the paper is actually a little larger than 12" by 16". The overall size of the actual content is 10"x14".

Mistakes

An oversight that I later decided was the Right Thing: I left out the whitework on the vines on the right page. Looking at it again, I decided this was better, because this scroll has bolder colors than the previous scroll I did in this style, and the delicacy of the whitework would be misplaced.

On this scroll, I went back to inking in the lines of the drawing before painting. It comes out crisper this way...but maybe it would be better to try shading instead.