The Limbourg Brothers (active c. 1390–1416): Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry

Hello, I'm Tom Campbell, Director of the Metropolitan Museum, and I'm here with Timothy Husband, Curator in the Medieval Art Department in the Cloisters, to celebrate the opening of a truly magnificent exhibition titled The Art of Illumination that is taking place here in the basement of the Lehman Wing. Tim, tell me a little bit about the occasion that we're celebrating in this exhibition. Well, this is a unique opportunity to see all the illuminations in one of the greatest manuscripts to come down from the late Middle Ages. The manuscript is known as the Belzer, or Beautiful Hours. It's a prayer book that was commissioned by Jean de France, Duc de Berry, one of the great patrons of all times, and it was painted by the Limburg brothers. Why are we displaying it now? What's the occasion of this exhibition? Some years ago, the manuscript was taken apart to make a facsimile, and to do some rather complicated conservation work. And once that work was done, it seemed the perfect opportunity to exhibit these extraordinary illuminations. So this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This is our only opportunity. It's very dark down here. It is a bit dark down here, but that's for the conservation of the manuscript. And because the book has not been exposed in its history, it's in extraordinarily fine condition. Shall we go and look? Let's take a look. So Tim, tell me a little bit about A Book of Hours. What exactly is it? Well, A Book of Hours is a prayer book. It was based on the books used by the clergy, but much simplified. And it was a way for the individual to establish a more immediate relationship with God, and in particular, the Virgin Mary. For at the core of every book of hours is the Hours of the Virgin. And that component begins here with the Annunciation you see on this spectacular page. How would the Duke of Bury have used this book? Well, that's an interesting question. He didn't really need a Book of Hours when he commissioned this one. He already had 14. So we envisage him flicking through the book by candlelight after dinner. We know that this manuscript was taken to one of his favourite chateaux, and I think he just enjoyed it quietly, the piece of his library, savouring the beautiful illuminations. And here, of course, it's a celebration of him. So we have his coat of arms in this very elaborate border. We have his coat of arms, and the Limburg brothers also painted this elaborate border. The foliage is inhabited with putti and bears and swans, which were the personal emblems of the Duke. It took a number of skilled craftsmen to produce a Book of Hours. The writing, the calligraphy, the text was done by a scribe. In the case of the Belzer, all by one scribe. Somebody else did the decorating of the letters, the line-enders, all the decoration you see in the text, and yet two other people did all the rest of the borders in the manuscript. We should go over here, because this is what makes the Belzer completely unique amongst Books of Hours. What do we have here? Here we have one of seven inserted picture cycles. This one is devoted to Saint Catherine. Now, these picture cycles were devoted to saints that were particularly venerated by the Valois princes or other important historical moments in Christianity. The text is very, very minimal, and it's all about the image. These picture cycles have absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the Book of Hours. They were added, I think, because the Duke could see how prodigiously gifted these young men were, and the manuscript became a more and more ambitious project. How old were they when they were working on this? The eldest one of the three was only 19, and the youngest about 16, strongly. Do we know how long this process took? We know pretty precisely. The Duke hired the Limburg brothers in 1404. We believe they began work on the Belzer in 1405, and we know from the entries in the Duke's inventories that the Belzer was finished either in late 1408 or early 1409. Let's go on and look at some of the other pages. We have to remember we're looking at a book here, even though it's taken apart, which is sometimes difficult to follow because the order is disrupted once the manuscript is taken apart. The Limburg brothers consciously were trying to visually connect one image to the next in a coherent narrative sequence. Uninfluenced, uninflected by previous mentalists. Exactly. These subjects had never been depicted before. They always gave sort of a little whimsical surprise ending to them. So remembering that we're looking at a book, you see here the Carthusian monks entering the monastery, the charter house that they had founded, and because most of the other images in the cycle go from interior to interior, you assume that when you turn the page that you're going to see an interior of the church. But let's walk around, and you'll see what we discover. Suddenly we're airborne, and you have this magnificent aerial view of the charter house that was founded by Saint Bruno outside of Cournod. You can even see above the cloisters the little individual cells, which is typical of Carthusian monastic architecture. And apparently it's a weekday because the monks, you can see in the foreground, were enjoying leisure time rowing about the pond. Now here, as in so many of the other illuminations, we've got these incredibly intense colors. Who was preparing all the paint for the artists? Were they doing it themselves? If they were following common practice at the time, the brothers were mixing their own paints. Remember they were working within princely compounds. They were not in a workshop. The Duke spared no expense in buying materials, and so the quality of the materials has helped preserve the manuscript, and given these illuminations their extraordinary rich color. Let's go on to the Passion of Christ. We've been looking at images that are intensely colorful, jewel-like, and yet here we have an image that's in monochrome with just a dash of color. Can you talk a little bit about this? It is the moment of Christ's death, and it follows biblical descriptions that the day turned to night, that the earth cracked open, that souls rose from the earth, a meteor-like object went flying across the sky. This is one of three crucifixion scenes in the Hours of the Passion. Let's go on to some of these other cycles. Along with the illuminations, we have a number of other objects in the exhibition. What have you brought in to expand the context here? Well, there are a number of objects that were produced in Paris at the time the manuscript was in production. These medals are of particular interest because the representation on this medal, which represents the Emperor Heraclius, is exactly the same composition as you find in the manuscript devoted to Heraclius and the recovery of the cross. Some scholars believe that the Limbourg brothers actually designed the medals and then repeated the composition in the Belzer, or the other way around. Remember, they were living in the ducal household, so they have all of the duke's extraordinary collections, and this is clearly an example. Tell me what's going on in this one, Tim. Well, this illumination introduces another one of the picture cycles, this one devoted to saints, the hermetical saints Antony and Paul. Apparently, this incident is what sent these two saints off to live in the wilderness. They came upon the devil, in fact, disguised as a very attractive young lady. A very voluptuous lady. Yes, very voluptuous, trying to seduce this young man. If you look carefully, you can see he's actually sitting on his hands, and she is running her hand up his thigh. Why is he bleeding from the mouth? Well, to resist temptation, he takes the extraordinary step of biting off the tip of his tongue and spitting it at her. You can actually see that in detail if you take a magnifying glass and look at it. And you really need a magnifying glass to appreciate some of the details. They're so minute, aren't they? Absolutely. While the manuscript was in conservation, I looked at every illumination under microscope, and it reveals detail at low power that you cannot possibly see with the naked eye. So they must have been using some sort of magnification. We see the duke in the final image, don't we? Yes, we do. What's important to understand about this image is that it, too, has nothing to do with the Book of Hours. The texts are prayers beseeching protection from Christ during the duke's travels. And the duke had 17 châteaux and residences of his own throughout his territories, was constantly traveling between one and the other. And he also was living in very violent times, and he had a rather violent family. So he had good reason to fear for his own safety. So this is the 178th illumination. You're not going to leave these separate? No. We believe from a conservation and a practical point of view, it's best to bind it in three separate volumes. But that means we can always have one volume on exhibition at the Cloisters. So illuminations from this manuscript will always be visible. So there you have it. One of the most beautiful medieval manuscripts that survives today, laid out in entirety here at the Metropolitan Museum for just over three months. Tim, it's a beautiful exhibition. Thank you so much. Thank you.