Albert Châtelet’s goal in this book is clear from its title: to identify the Master of Moulins, named after a triptych of the Virgin and Child Adored by Angels with Saints and Donors in Moulins Cathedral, with Jean Prévost, who served as master glazier and painter for Lyon Cathedral. The polemical character of the volume is apparent even in the author’s dedication to Louis Grodecki, the noted specialist in glass painting, who ‘first noted the intervention of the Master of Moulins in the windows of the Moulins Cathedral and who understood that he was none other than Jean Prévost.’ In the opening chapter,’la quête d’un artiste,’ Châtelet briefly reviews attempts made over the past half century to attach a name to the anonymous master. First proposed, among other possibilities, by Paul Dupieux in 1946, the association of Prévost with the Master of Moulins was more passionately and unambiguously put forward by Châtelet himself in several publications (e.g. ‘A Plea for the Master of Moulins,’ The Burlington Magazine, 104, 1962, pp. 517-24; ‘Au temps des Jean: l’Ènigme du Maître de Moulins,’ in: Anne de Beaujeu et ses Ènigmes, Académie de Villefranche-en-Beaujolais, Villefranche-sur-Saône, 1984, pp.110-23). Châtelet’s pleas have generally fallen on resistant ears, with most scholars identifying the Master with Jean Hey. The author here restates his case in thirteen short chapters, each devoted to a work, group of works, to an aspect of Prévost’s career, or to the activities of the French court. Châtelet places particular emphasis on the Master of Moulins’ style and its apparent connections to glass painting. The book’s second part is made up of six appendices, containing documents and brief catalogue entries on the works of Prévost, Laurent Girardin, ‘Jean Hay,’ Pierre de Paix, the Master of Saint Giles (identified here as Wouter de Crane), and Hugo van der Goes.

Jacob Wisse

Adelphi University