A book of hours is a prayer book for people who were not priests or monks. It held prayers for the eight "hours" of the day, prayers to the Virgin Mary, psalms, and a calendar of saints' days, month by month. In the 1300s and 1400s books of hours were the most common books in Western Europe. Wealthy owners ordered them richly painted.
The most famous is the Très Riches Heures ("very rich hours") made for Jean, Duke of Berry, a brother of the French king and a passionate collector. The painters were three brothers from the Netherlands, Paul, Herman and Jean (Johan) Limbourg. They worked on it from about 1412 until 1416, when all three brothers and the duke died, probably of the plague. Other painters completed it in the 1480s.
Looking closely: January. It is New Year, when gifts were exchanged, and the duke holds a feast. He sits at the right in deep blue, his fur hat making him easy to find, while courtiers crowd in from the left in brilliant reds, greens and blues. Behind them a tapestry shows knights fighting, as if a war story were part of the decoration. Every surface is patterned: the blue cloth with gold fleurs-de-lis, the gold dishes, the striped floor. The figures are slender and elegant, and the space is shallow, like a stage. This crowded, jewel-like style of the courts around 1400 is called International Gothic.
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Why it works
Worked example: Read a calendar page
- Each calendar page shows the month's typical work and weather.
- In early spring, fields are plowed and sown.
- So March shows plowing, with one of the duke's castles behind to say whose land it is.
Answer: It shows March's season and labors, on the duke's land.
Common mistake