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Neptune creating the horse (Image #2)
In this image detail, a mermaid blows a trumpet while holding a stringed instrument. She embodies an ideal beauty with small breasts, white skin and a high forehead. Her long blonde hair emphasizes this perfection, but beneath her waist the fins and double tail mark her as a creature of the sea. In the full manuscript image, the mermaid is part of the entourage celebrating Neptune as he creates the horse. In Classical mythology Neptune and Athena each created a gift for the city of Athens in a competition to become the civic deity. Neptune's gift of the horse was bested by Athena's present of the olive tree.
This illustration of Neptune appears in the text Le Livre des échecs amoureux moralisés written by Évrart de Conty (d. 1405), a physician at the court of King Charles V. Earlier, Évrart had composed the poem Les Eschés amoureux and then thirty years later wrote a prose account, incorporating a moral commentary, with both texts depending heavily on the Roman de la Rose for content and form. The newer work had specific didactic intentions: to teach a young prince how to govern well and, at the same time, how to behave when in love. The stories and images of the Classical gods provided examples to emulate and behaviors that the young reader should avoid. For example, the tritons accompanying Neptune are equated with flatterers:
"The fish tuning and trumpeting around Neptune to do him honor and keep him company signify to us the flatterers of the world and the great blabbers, who ordinarily use futile, vain words, and are often enough found everywhere, and especially in the courts of great lords."
This copy of the text was made between 1496 and 1498 for Louise of Savoy, Countess of Angoulême and mother of King Francis I, for the use of her son. The illustrations were painted by Robinet Testard, an artist who served the Angoulême family, a branch of the French royal family. His work is notable for bright colors and strong lines with a highly developed attention to decorative details. Charles d' Angoulême and his countess, Louise, commissioned Testard for works in which he created new visions of allegorical and symbolic meaning. None of Testard's manuscript illustrations are signed or dated, requiring that his works be identified by attribution, along with some associated documents.
The mermaid is a common figure in later medieval art, where she often stood for worldly pleasures or lust. These negative connotations were further reinforced by the association with sirens, half-bird women, known from Greek and Roman mythology, to pose a danger because of their seductive songs. In Testard's image, the mermaid is playing music; but, in this case, she poses no danger to sailors. She also does not carry the common attributes of comb and mirror, signifiers of lust or vanity, but her bare breasts and delicate features invite the viewer's gaze to linger.