The April calendar page of the Très Riches Heures is attributed to Jean de Limbourg.
The scene depicts a bethrothal before two witnesses whilst two young women in attendance pick flowers. On the right is a walled garden or pleasance, the plants of which are not fully in bloom, but all is prepared for the coming season of growth. In the background is the Château de Dourdan, west of Paris, which had been held by the Duke of Berry since 1385, and of which much of the buildings still survive. There is more about the history of the chateau and many more pictures here.
The scene depicts a bethrothal before two witnesses whilst two young women in attendance pick flowers. On the right is a walled garden or pleasance, the plants of which are not fully in bloom, but all is prepared for the coming season of growth. In the background is the Château de Dourdan, west of Paris, which had been held by the Duke of Berry since 1385, and of which much of the buildings still survive. There is more about the history of the chateau and many more pictures here.
Romance and the spring clearly went together in the early fifteenth century mind. There is in its aristocratic rural idyll something we recognise in later artists and even in modern advertisements such as those for firms like Barbour.
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