May — The Green Ride
A cavalcade of nobles in may-green, riding out to welcome the spring.
- 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 supports sizes up to 24x36 cleanly.
Size
$24.00
The story
A procession of aristocrats on horseback, dressed head to toe in the traditional May green, ride out from a city gate to the sound (we may imagine) of hunting horns — a courtly custom of welcoming spring known across late-medieval Europe. Trumpeters lead the column; ladies ride sidesaddle in flower crowns; the whole page moves with a lateral energy unusual in the calendar's otherwise more static compositions. Some art historians read individual riders as portraits of the French royal court, though none are firmly identified. The zodiac lunette shows Taurus giving way to Gemini. Of all twelve months, May is the calendar's purest expression of aristocratic pleasure, untroubled by labor or symbol alike.
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.
- Available as a Gold-Foil Premium Edition — a metallic accent print evoking the illuminator’s gold, for a piece from one of the tradition’s luminous, gilded manuscripts.
- Ships in 5–8 business days; satisfaction guaranteed.
See it framed
Room
Frame
Shown as a 24x36″ archival print, true to the piece's own proportions, on a real photographed wall.
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.
April — The Betrothal
A ring exchanged before the Château de Dourdan, in the year's first green.