1. Northern European miniatures are related to the culture’s concern with material goods and material well-being and to the Gothic predilection for intricate traceries, the winding interplay of ornamental buds and leaves that are so often apparent in Gothic stone- and woodwork. They also reflect a developing taste for naturalism in art.
2. The most famous miniature painters were the Limbourg brothers from the Netherlands, who worked for Jean, Duke of Berry, the wealthiest man in Europe at the dawn of the fifteenth century. The Duke commissioned from them the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, an illuminated Book of Hours. Many of the illustrations depict the Duke of Berry’s residences and those of the French royal family, providing us with a documentary record of their appearance, even though most of the buildings were destroyed long ago.
3. The calendar section of the Très Riches Heures also provides us with insight into the daily lives of the nobility and the peasants. In January, Jean de Berry presides over a New Year’s feast. This resplendent image of material well-being contrasts dramatically with the next scene, representing February, in which we see three peasants warming themselves at a fire, one of them, probably the “lady” of the house, with her skirts raised somewhat modestly just below her knees to reveal her knickers, but the two others, clearly peasants, immodestly exposing themselves.
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