Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry
Encyclopedia
Book of Hours
The book of hours was a devotional book popular in the later Middle Ages. It is the most common type of surviving medieval illuminated manuscript. Like every manuscript, each manuscript book of hours is unique in one way or another, but most contain a similar collection of texts, prayers and...
(containing prayers to be said by the lay faithful at each of the canonical hours
Canonical hours
Canonical hours are divisions of time which serve as increments between the prescribed prayers of the daily round. A Book of Hours contains such a set of prayers....
of the day) commissioned by John, Duke of Berry
John, Duke of Berry
John of Valois or John the Magnificent was Duke of Berry and Auvergne and Count of Poitiers and Montpensier. He was the third son of King John II of France and Bonne of Luxemburg; his brothers were King Charles V of France, Duke Louis I of Anjou and Duke Philip the Bold of Burgundy...
, around 1410. It is probably the most important illuminated manuscript
Illuminated manuscript
An illuminated manuscript is a manuscript in which the text is supplemented by the addition of decoration, such as decorated initials, borders and miniature illustrations...
of the 15th century, "le roi des manuscrits enluminés" ("the king of illuminated manuscripts").
The Très Riches Heures consists of 416 pages, including 131 with large miniatures
Miniature (illuminated manuscript)
The word miniature, derived from the Latin minium, red lead, is a picture in an ancient or medieval illuminated manuscript; the simple decoration of the early codices having been miniated or delineated with that pigment...
and many more with border decorations or historiated initial
Historiated initial
A historiated initial is an enlarged letter at the beginning of a paragraph or other section of text, which contains a picture. Strictly speaking, an inhabited initial contains figures that are decorative only, without forming a subject, whereas in a historiated initial there is an identifiable...
s, that are among the high points of International Gothic
International Gothic
International Gothic is a phase of Gothic art which developed in Burgundy, Bohemia, France and northern Italy in the late 14th century and early 15th century...
painting in spite of their small size. There are 300 decorated capital letters.
The book was worked on, over a period of nearly a century, in three main campaigns, led by the Limbourg brothers
Limbourg brothers
The Limbourg brothers, or in Dutch Gebroeders van Limburg , were famous Dutch miniature painters from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy, working in the style known as International Gothic...
, Barthélemy van Eyck, and Jean Colombe
Jean Colombe
Jean Colombe was a French miniature painter and illuminator of manuscripts. He is best known for his work in Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry...
. The Limbourg brothers used very fine brushes and expensive paints to make the paintings.
The book is now Ms. 65 in the Musée Condé, Chantilly
Chantilly, Oise
Chantilly is a small city in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune in the department of Oise.It is in the metropolitan area of Paris 38.4 km...
, France.
Calendar
A generalized calendarCalendar
A calendar is a system of organizing days for social, religious, commercial, or administrative purposes. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months, and years. The name given to each day is known as a date. Periods in a calendar are usually, though not...
(not specific to any year) of church feasts and saints' days, often illuminated, is a usual part of a book of hours, but the illustrations of the months in the Très Riches Heures are exceptional and innovative in their scope, and the best known element of the decoration of the manuscript. Most of them show one of the duke's castles in the background, and are filled with details of the delights and labors of the months, from the Duke's court to his peasants, a counterpart to the prayers of the hours. Each illustration is surmounted with its appropriate hemisphere showing a solar chariot, the signs and degrees of the zodiac
Zodiac
In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...
, and numbering the days of the month and the martyrological letters for the ecclesiastic lunar calendar.
Artists
The main campaign of illumination was sometime between 1412 and 1416 by the Limbourg brothersLimbourg brothers
The Limbourg brothers, or in Dutch Gebroeders van Limburg , were famous Dutch miniature painters from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy, working in the style known as International Gothic...
. The text, border decorations, and gilding were most likely executed by assistants or specialists who remain mostly unknown. The Limbourg brothers left the book unfinished and unbound at their, and the Duke's, death in 1416. The work passed to the Duke's cousin, the royal art lover and amateur painter René d'Anjou
René I of Naples
René of Anjou , also known as René I of Naples and Good King René , was Duke of Anjou, Count of Provence , Count of Piedmont, Duke of Bar , Duke of Lorraine , King of Naples , titular King of Jerusalem...
, who had an unidentified artist, the so-called Master of the Shadows, who was probably Barthélemy van Eyck, work on the book in the 1440s. Forty years later Charles I, Duc de Savoie commissioned Jean Colombe
Jean Colombe
Jean Colombe was a French miniature painter and illuminator of manuscripts. He is best known for his work in Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry...
to finish the paintings between 1485 and 1489.
The paintings of Colombe are easy to distinguish, as are those of the Master of the Shadows (Barthélemy d'Eyck). From the original campaign of illustration various hands have been identified, and Pognon gives the following breakdown of the main miniatures in the Calendar:
- January: the courtly painter
- February: the rustic painter
- March: the courtly painter (landscape) and the Master of the Shadows (figures)
- April: the courtly painter
- May: the courtly painter
- June: the rustic painter
- July: the rustic painter
- August: the courtly painter
- September: the rustic painter (landscape)? and the Master of the Shadows (figures)
- October: the Master of the Shadows
- November: Jean Colombe
- December: the Master of the Shadows
In addition Pognon identifies the "pious painter" who painted many of the religious scenes later in the book during the initial campaign. The "courtly", "rustic" and "pious" painters would probably equate to the three Limbourg brothers, or perhaps other artists in their workshop. There are alternative analyses and divisions proposed by other specialists.
Commentary on the Calendar scenes
- September: This miniature was almost certainly painted in two phases: first, the upper section with the sky and château was painted in the middle of the fifteenth century, around 1438-1442, in the time of René d’Anjou and Yolande d’Aragon; then the lower scene of grape-picking was completed by Jean Colombe from a sketch left by his predecessor. In general, artists started with the background, then painted in the characters before finishing with their faces.
In the foreground, it is grape-picking time. The woman in a white and red apron looks pregnant. Other young peasants are picking the purple bunches, while one of them is tasting the grapes. A further character holding a basket is walking towards a mule which is carrying two panniers. The grapes are being loaded either into the mules’ panniers or into the vats on the cart pulled by two oxen.
In the background stands the Château de Saumur with its chimneys and weathervanes decorated with golden fleurs-de-lys. It was built by Louis II d’Anjou then given to his wife Yolande d’Aragon, the mother of King René and mother-in-law of Charles VII, over whom she had a considerable sway. The presence of this château can be explained by the important role played by Yolande in the early years of the reign of Charles VII and by how much the king enjoyed staying there. On the left, behind the enceinte, stands a clock-tower, the chimneys of the kitchens and a gate leading to a drawbridge. A horse is coming out and a woman with a basket on her head is on her way in.
In front of the château, between the vines and the moat can be seen a tilting ground surrounded by palisades, where tournaments were held.
The architectural design of the château draws the gaze up towards the dreamily poetic volutes. The towers conceal their protective nature beneath festive trappings, redolent of fabulous adventures in the forests of Arthurian legends and suggestive of the presence of God in His creation. As François Cali put it: “These extravagant towers are a dream landscape with constellations of canopies, pinnacles, gables and arrows, with their crockets fluttering against the light.”
In the middle of the grape pickers, a character is showing his behind. This intentionally grotesque touch contrasts with the extraordinary elegance of the château. Jean Colombe’s peasants lack the dignity they have in the other miniatures.
Further reading
- Michael Camille. “The Très Riches Heures: An Illuminated Manuscript in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.” Critical Inquiry 17 (Autumn 1990). 72-107.