Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry

Описание: The "Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry", or "Très Riches Heures", is possibly the best example of French Gothic manuscript illumination surviving to the present day. The Très Riches Heures is a book of prayers to be said at canonical hours created for John, Duke of Berry, by the Limbourg brothers between 1412 and 1416. Unfinished at the death of the three painters and their sponsor in 1416, the manuscript was further embellished by an anonymous painter in the 1440s, who many art historians believe to be Barthélemy d'Eyck. In 1485-1486, it was completed to its present state by the painter Jean Colombe between 1485 and 1489 on behalf of the Duke of Savoy. Acquired by the Duc d'Aumale in 1856, it currently resides in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.
A total of 206 vellum leaves 30 cm in height by 21.5 cm in width, the manuscript contains 66 large miniatures and 65 small. The design of the book, long and complex has undergone many changes and reversals. For its sets, miniatures, but also calligraphy, initials and decorations margins, it has been the work of many artists, but determining their precise number and identity remains a hypothesis. Performed largely by artists from the Netherlands, using pigments, these rarest paintings are strongly influenced by Italian art and antiquities.
After three centuries in obscurity, the Très Riches Heures quickly gained a great reputation in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite having only rare public exposure. These miniatures helped to shape an ideal image of the Middle Ages in the collective imagination. This is particularly the case of images of the calendar, the most common, representing both rural scenes and aristocratic elements of remarkable medieval architecture