The (; ), or (also referred to more colloquially as "The Très Riches Heures of Jean, Duke of Berry") is an illuminated manuscript that was created between and 1416. It is a book of hours, which is a Christian devotional book and collection of prayers said at canonical hours that originated in the 13th century as a means of bringing daily prayer to the laiety, or laypeople. The manuscript was created for John, Duke of Berry, the brother of King Charles V of France, by Limbourg brothers Paul, Johan and Herman.Manion 1996, p. 308. The book is now MS 65 in the Musée Condé, Chantilly, France.

Consisting of a total of 206 leaves of very fine quality parchment, in height by in width, the manuscript contains 66 large miniatures and 65 small. The design of the book, which is long and complex, has undergone many changes and reversals. Many artists contributed to its miniatures, calligraphy, initials, and marginal decorations, but determining their precise number and identity remains a matter of debate. Painted largely by artists from the Low Countries, often using rare and costly pigments and gold,; originally published at humanities.uchicago.edu. and with an unusually large number of illustrations, the book is one of the most lavish late medieval illuminated manuscripts. The work was created in the late artistic phase of the International Gothic style.

When the Limbourg brothers and their sponsor died in 1416 (possibly victims of plague) the manuscript was left unfinished. It was further added upon in the 1440s by an anonymous painter, who many art historians believe was Barthélemy d'Eyck. In 1485–1489, it was brought to its present state by the painter Jean Colombe on behalf of the Duke of Savoy. It was acquired by the Duke of Aumale in 1856.

After three centuries in obscurity, the Très Riches Heures gained wide recognition in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite having only very limited public exposure at the Musée Condé. Its miniatures helped to shape an ideal image of the Middle Ages in the collective imagination, often being interpreted to serve political and nationalist agendas.Camille, throughout This is particularly true for the calendar images, which are the most commonly reproduced. They offer vivid representations of peasants performing agricultural work as well as aristocrats in formal attire, against a background of remarkable medieval architecture.

Historical context The "Golden Age" of the book of hours in Europe took place from 1350 to 1480; the book of hours became popular in France around 1400 (Longnon, Cazelles and Meiss, 1969). At this time many major French artists undertook manuscript illumination.

Duke of Berry John, Duke of Berry, is the French prince for whom the Très Riches Heures was made. Berry was the third son of the future King of France, John II the Good, and the brother and uncle of the next two kings. Little is known of Berry's education, but it is certain that he spent his adolescence among arts and literature (Cazelles and Rathofer, 1988). The young prince lived an extravagant life, necessitating frequent loans. He commissioned many works of art, which he amassed in his Sainte-Chapelle mansion. Upon Berry's death in 1416, a final inventory was done on his estate that described the incomplete and unbound gatherings of the book as the "très riches heures" ("very rich[ly decorated] hours") to distinguish it from the 15 other books of hours in Berry's collection, including the Belles Heures ("beautiful hours") and Petites Heures ("little hours") (Cazelles and Rathofer, 1988).

Provenance The Très Riches Heures has changed ownership many times since its creation. The gatherings were certainly in Berry's estate on his death in 1416, but after this little is clear until 1485. A good deal is known about the lengthy and messy disposal of Berry's goods to satisfy his many creditors, which was disrupted by the insanity of the king and the Burgundian and English occupation of Paris, but there are no references to the manuscript.Reynolds, 526–528 It seems to have been in Paris for much of this period, and probably earlier; some borders suggest the style of the Parisian Bedford Master's workshop, and works from the 1410s to the 1440s by the Bedford workshop — later taken over by the Dunois Master — use border designs from other pages, suggesting that the manuscript was available for copying in Paris.

Duke Charles I of Savoy acquired the manuscript, probably as a gift, and commissioned Jean Colombe to complete the manuscript around 1485–1489. Sixteenth-century Flemish artists imitated the figures or entire compositions found in the calendar (Cazelles and Rathofer 1988). The manuscript belonged to Margaret of Austria, Duchess of Savoy (1480–1530), Governor of the Habsburg Netherlands from 1507 to 1515 and again from 1519 to 1530. She was the second wife of Charles' son in law.

After this its history is unknown until the 18th century, when it was given its present bookbinding with the arms of the Serra family of Genoa, Italy.

It was inherited from the Serras by Baron Felix de Margherita of Turin and Milan. The French Orléanist pretender, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale, then in exile at Twickenham near London, bought it from the baron in 1856. On his return to France in 1871 Aumale placed it in his library at the Château de Chantilly, which he bequeathed to the Institut de France as the home of the Musée Condé.Camille, 72–77, 82; Pognon, 15

Recent history

When Aumale saw the manuscript in Genoa he was able to recognize it as a commission of Berry, probably because he was familiar with a set of plates of other manuscripts of Berry published in 1834, and subsidized by the government of the duke's father, King Louis Philippe I.Camille, 75 Aumale gave the German art historian Gustav Friedrich Waagen breakfast and a private view of the manuscript at Orleans House, just in time for a 10-page account to appear in Waagen's Galleries and Cabinets of Art in Great Britain in 1857, so beginning its rise to fame.Camille, 79–80 He also exhibited it in 1862 to the members of the Fine Arts Club.Camille, 78

The connection with the "très riches heures" listed in the 1416 inventory was made by Léopold Victor Delisle of the Bibliothèque nationale de France and communicated to Aumale in 1881, before being published in 1884 in the Gazette des Beaux-Arts; it has never been seriously disputed.Camille, 80–81 The manuscript took pride of place in a three-part article on all of Berry's manuscripts then known, and was the only one illustrated, with four plates in heliogravure.Camille, 83–84; Delisle However the manuscript was called the "Grandes Heures du duc de Berry" in this, a title now given to another manuscript, based on its larger page size. The name "Heures de Chantilly" was also used in the next decades.Camille, 84

A monograph with 65 heliogravure plates was published by Paul Durrieu in 1904, to coincide with a major exhibition of French Gothic art in Paris where it was exhibited in the form of 12 plates from the Durrieu monograph, as the terms of Aumale's bequest forbade its removal from Chantilly.Camille, 82, 86 The work became increasingly famous, and increasingly reproduced. The first colour reproductions, using the technique of photogravure, appeared in 1940 in the French art quarterly Verve. Each issue of this lavish magazine cost three hundred francs.Camille, 86–88 In January 1948, the very popular American photo-magazine Life published a feature with full-page reproductions of the 12 calendar scenes, at a little larger than their actual size but at very low-quality. Catering to American sensibilities of the time, the magazine censored one of the images by retouching the genitals of the peasant in the February scene.Camille, 86–90 The Musée Condé decided in the 1980s, somewhat controversially, to remove the manuscript completely both from public display and scholarly access, replacing it with copies of a complete modern facsimile.Camille 1990, pp. 73–74. Note, however, that in 2008, Timothy Husband, Curator of the Department of Medieval Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, reported that he was allowed to examine the manuscript at the Chantilly Library for "many uninterrupted hours" (Husband 2008, p. viii). Michael Camille argues that this completes the logic of the reception history of a work that has almost entirely become famous through reproductions of its images, with the most famous images having been seen in the original by only a very small number of people.

Artists

There has been much debate regarding the identity and number of artists who contributed to the Très Riches Heures.

The Limbourg brothers In 1884, Léopold Delisle correlated the manuscript with the description of an item in an inventory drawn up after Berry's death: "several gatherings of a very rich book of hours [très riches heures], richly historiated and illuminated, that Pol [Paul] and his brothers made".Item XXV in Delisle 1884, p. 106: "une layette plusieurs cayers d'unes très riches heures que faisoient Pol et ses frères, très richement historiez et enluminez". The English translation (without the bracketed explanatory additions) is from Manion 1996, p. 308. Delisle's resulting attribution to Paul de Limbourg and his two brothers, Jean and Herman, "has received general acceptance and also provided the manuscript with its name."

The three Limbourg brothers had originally worked under the supervision of Berry's brother, Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, on a Bible Moralisée and had come to work for Berry after Philip's death. By 1411, the Limbourgs were permanent members of Berry's household (Cazelles and Rathofer 1988). It is also generally agreed that another of Berry's books of hours, the Belles Heures, completed between 1408 and 1409, can also be attributed to the brothers. It is thought that the Limbourg contribution to the Très Riches Heures was between about 1412 and their deaths in 1416. Documentation from 1416 was found indicating that Jean, followed by Paul and Herman, had died. John of Berry died later that year (Cazelles and Rathofer 1988). Apart from the main campaign of illumination, the text, border decorations, and gilding were most likely executed by assistants or specialists who remain unknown.

The choice of castles in the calendar is one factor in the dating of the brothers' contribution. The Château of Bicêtre, just outside Paris, was one of Berry's grandest residences, but does not appear in the calendar. It seems likely that this was because no image had been created by October 1411, when a large mob from Paris looted it and set it on fire in the Armagnac–Burgundian Civil War. However the châteaux at Dourdan (April) and Étampes (July) are both shown, although Berry lost them to the Burgundians at the end of 1411, with Étampes being badly damaged in the siege.Pognon, 13

Jean Colombe Folio 75 of the Très Riches Heures includes Duke Charles I of Savoy and his wife. The two were married in 1485 and the Duke died in 1489, implying that it was not one of the original folios. The second painter was identified by Paul Durrieu as Jean Colombe,Pognon, 10 who was paid 25 gold pieces by the Duke to complete certain canonical hours (Cazelles and Rathofer 1988).

There were some miniatures which were incomplete and needed filling in, for example, the foreground figures and faces of the miniature illustrating the Office of the Dead, known as the Funeral of Raymond Diocrès.Manion 1996, p. 309.