A celebrated manuscript from the middle ages that inspired a Walt Disney castle but has been unseen by the public and scholars for more than 40 years will go on display in France this summer.
Pages from Les Très Riches Heures (The Very Rich Hours) – an elaborately decorated prayer book from the 15th century – will be exhibited at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris, after a costly restoration. It has not been seen, even by historians and academics, since the 1980s.
Commissioned by John, the duke of Berry, brother of King Charles V of France, the 416-page manuscript is a “book of hours” recording prayers to be said at each canonical hour of the day, along with a calendar of church feasts and saints’ days.
It contains 131 complex miniatures, 300 decorated capital letters and border decorations created from expensive pigments and gold on delicate calfskin vellum pages. Many images are representations of peasants farming and finely dressed nobles in elegant buildings as well as traditional religious scenes.
The book was created by three Dutch brothers, Paul, Johan and Herman Limbourg, who worked in what is now known as International Gothic style that began in Burgundy and northern Italy and spread across western Europe, and is considered their greatest work.
When the brothers and the duke all died in 1416 – possibly from the Black Death – the manuscript, unfinished and unbound, passed to Berry’s cousin, the duke of Anjou. Shortly afterwards other artists, thought to include Dutchman Barthélemy d’Eyck, known as the “master of the shadows”, who was also based in Burgundy, worked on the book.
For more than 40 years after Berry’s death, the exact whereabouts of Les Très Riches Heures remained a mystery until 1485, when it was acquired by Charles, the duke of Savoy, who commissioned the French painter and illuminator Jean Colombe to complete the work. On Savoy’s death five years later, the work passed through the hands of several dignitaries and noble families in the Low Countries (the Netherlands), and in France and Italy. In 1856, it resurfaced in Twickenham at the home of Henri, the duke of Aumale, son of King Louis-Philippe, who had lived in exile in the UK.
When Aumale returned to France in 1877, he installed his art collection and the book at the Château de Chantilly, his home, where it has remained ever since. The Condé museum, established at the property to house the works, has been open to the public since 1898, but Les Très Riches Heures has rarely been displayed and never loaned.
The book remained largely unknown until the late 19th and 20th centuries, when its pictures became a reference for the middle ages in the public imagination. The Sleeping Beauty castle at Disneyland Paris was partly inspired by images of châteaux from Les Très Riches Heures.
“When people think of the middle ages, these are the images they see,” said Mathieu Deldicque, director of the Condé museum.
He said the exhibition would also feature books from the duke of Berry’s collection on display for the first time since the 15th century. Berry, known as John the Magnificent, whose motto was “Le Temps venra” (the time will come), was one of medieval France’s greatest patrons of the arts and collected illuminated manuscripts.
Deldicque said the restoration of Les Très Riches Heures would be completed after the exhibition closes and the manuscript returns to the museum’s archive.
“It is too fragile and at risk of damage from light to be on permanent display,” he said. “That’s why this exhibition will be unique. Everyone knows about this book – but nobody has seen it.”
