Here’s more on Pol Limbourg’s January illustration from the Très Riche Heures produced for John duke of Berry. .
Apart from the battle scene depiction in the background, said to be a reference to the Trojan Wars, the main action of the painting centres on and around the banquet table.
The ‘pole’ position at the table is taken up by the host, John duke of Berry, wearing a blue gown. He is turned to isten to what the “man of the cloth” at the end of the table has to say. But notice the gap on the seat between the two men, seemingly guarded by the chamberlain stood behind the space. It’s a place reseved for a very special guest to sit at the right hand of the host. But who is he? Could he be one the group of men in a line approaching the chamberlain? No, they are there for other reasons. and not just to warm their hands at the fire.
Artist Pol Limbourg has purposely displaced the duke of Berry’s honoured guest and positioned him elsewhere in the frame, almost out of the picture! In fact, he is not even seen in the cropped image above. To discover him and the reason for Pol Limbourg’s inventive design the folio needs to be viewed in its entirety.
The ‘servant’ feeding the greyhound in the bottom right corner of the frame is the man who has given up his seat at the table, not that he has been asked to by the host. He is placed as a corner stone on which the main theme of the January folio is built upon.
His name is Richard II, King of England
• More on this in a future post.