April — The Betrothal
A ring exchanged before the Château de Dourdan, in the year's first green.
- Work
- Book of Hours (calendar cycle)
- Artist / creator
- The Limbourg Brothers (Herman, Paul & Jean de Limbourg); later folios completed by Jean Colombe
- Origin & date
- Franco-Flemish, c. 1412–1416 (later miniatures c. 1485–1489)
- Held by
- Musée Condé, Chantilly
Format
The full-resolution color-managed file — yours to print, study, and keep.
Sized to protect print quality — this scan's resolution doesn't clear our floor for a physical print, so this piece is offered as a digital download only.
Size
$24.00
The story
A young couple, richly dressed in blue and gold, exchange a ring at the center of a walled garden, attendants gathered close, while the Château de Dourdan's round towers rise behind them and figures gather flowers along a riverbank. Scholars still debate exactly which betrothal is depicted — candidates include members of the Berry and Bourbon families — but the scene's function is clear: April as the month of courtship and renewal, the whole panel bathed in the pale new green particular to a French spring. The zodiac lunette carries Aries into Taurus. It is the gentlest folio in the calendar cycle, love and land coming into leaf together.
About this reproduction
- Faithful reproduction of a public-domain work, sourced from Musée Condé, Chantilly’s open-access release.
- Printed to order on archival cotton-rag stock, pigment inks rated 100+ years.
- Color-managed to the source scan.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
See it framed
Room
Frame
This scan's resolution is offered as a digital download only, so there's no physical size to frame here — shown for reference, true to the piece's own proportions.
From The Calendar
January — The Duke's New Year
The calendar's famous frontispiece: Jean de Berry at his own feast table.
February — The Peasants' Hearth
A snow-covered farmyard, and the coldest, tenderest scene in the calendar.
March — Plowing at Lusignan
Sowers and shepherds beneath a fairy-tale castle on the horizon.
May — The Green Ride
A cavalcade of nobles in may-green, riding out to welcome the spring.