Calendar pages

One minor New Year's resolution for 2012 is to post the appropriate calendar page from the Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duc de Berry each month. There is an article about this famous Book of Hours here, which has links to articles on the artists involved. The manuscript was begun by the Limbourg brothers Herman (b. 1385), Paul (b.1386 or 7) and Jean (b. 1388) in 1412, but left unfinished when they all died, probably of plague, in February 1416. The Duke died that same year and the Hours were completed by later artists, in a recognisably different style.

The majority of the calendar pages are by the Limbourgs themselves, and include marvellous views of the ducal and other royal residences in France. What they do not indicate in their idyllic representations - and, given the nature of the book, why should they I might add - is that they were produced against the background of civil conflit between the Armagnacs and the Burgundians, as detailed in the journal of the Bourgeois of Paris, and, in 1415, King Henry V's invasion and the French defeat at Agincourt.

I will post each one seperately month by month with some notes about the scene.