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Very Rich Hours in Chantilly

It is a once-in-a-lifetime experience: the chance to see one of the greatest -- and most fragile -- works of European art before your very eyes. The illustrated manuscript known as the  Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry contains images that have shaped our view of the late Middle Ages, but it's normally kept under lock and key at the Château de Chantilly, north of Paris. It's only been exhibited twice in the past century. Now newly restored, the glowing pages of  Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry are on show to the public for just a few months. "Approche, approche," the Duke of Berry's usher tells the visitors to the great man's table for the feast that will mark the start of the New Year. It's also your invitation to examine closely the illustration for January, one of the 12 months from the calendar in this Book of Hours -- a collection of prayers and other religious texts -- that form the centrepiece of this exhibition in Chantilly.  It's su...
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Opening and Closing in November

There's a blockbuster of an exhibition about to open in London on November 2: Tutankhamun -- Treasures of the Golden Pharaoh at the Saatchi Gallery. Of more than 150 artefacts on show from the Egyptian king's tomb, unearthed almost a century ago, 60 are leaving Egypt for a first and final time on a world tour before they return to be displayed in a new Grand Egyptian Museum. The show's just been to Paris, where it drew almost 1.5 million visitors. It's on in London until May 3. Tickets are, as you might expect, not cheap.

Five hundred years after the death of Leonardo da Vinci, the National Gallery is offering visitors an immersive exhibition designed to reveal the secrets of his painting The Virgin of the Rocks, taking you from inside the artist's mind (!) to how the picture might have looked in its original setting. Leonardo: Experience a Masterpiece opens on November 9 and runs until January 12.

We'll be expecting something a little less hi-tech from George IV: Art & Spectacle at the Queen's Gallery, starting on November 15. George IV may not have gone down in history as one of the wiser, more restrained of Britain's monarchs, but he did have an eye for a good painting and great art (as well as a bit of bling). You can see what he added to the Royal Collection until May 3. 
The British Museum's new show examines Troy: Myth and Reality. bringing together archaeology and art to find out why the legend of Troy has endured for 3,000 years. Runs from November 21 to March 8.

Also at the National Gallery, a free display, Young Bomberg and the Old Masters, sets some of David Bomberg's earliest paintings against those that inspired him, including works by Botticelli and Michelangelo. November 27 to March 1.
And for our final listing in the capital this month, at the Garden Museum you can see Play, Protest and Pelicans: A People's History of London's Royal Parks, which starts November 20 and runs until February 9.

The Irish-born artist William Orpen is best known for his portraits and his pictures of World War I. William Orpen: Method & Mastery at the Watts Gallery in Compton, near Guildford, from November 19 aims to provide new insights into his ways of working. Until February 23.

We really enjoyed seeing the abstracted landscapes of Ivon Hitchens at the Pallant House Gallery in Chichester earlier this year; now the show moves to the Djanogly Gallery in Nottingham, and it's well worth catching there, especially as admission is free. Ivon Hitchens: Space through Colour runs from November 2 to February 23.

The superb show exhibiting Leonardo's drawings from the Royal Collection moves on to Edinburgh this month, though in condensed form. Leonardo da Vinci: A Life in Drawing is on at the Queen's Gallery at Holyroodhouse from November 22 to March 15.

The other big anniversary of the year is the one marking 350 years since the death of Rembrandt, and the final big Rembrandt show of 2019 is the one opening at the freshly renovated Lakenhal museum in his home city of Leiden. Young Rembrandt -- Rising Star is the name of this exhibition, looking at how his early talent developed. It's on from November 2 to February 9, after which it transfers to the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford.
There is yet more Rembrandt to be seen in a show called Inside Rembrandt at the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne. This exhibition is a joint venture with the National Gallery in Prague, includes international loans, and runs from November 1 to March 1.

The Kunsthalle in Karlsruhe in south-west Germany is exhibiting the work of Hans Baldung Grien, a contemporary of Albrecht Dürer and Lucas Cranach known for his often eccentric style. This looks set to be one of those massive shows the Germans specialise in, with more than 200 loans. It's on from November 30 to March 8. 
The Petit Palais in Paris is celebrating the 17th-century Neapolitan painter Luca Giordano; expect lots of religious paintings and mythological scenes among nearly 90 works on display from November 14 to February 23.

And over in Brittany, the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Quimper has assembled 300 works -- covering the applied arts as well as paintings -- by Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) from a private collection. Dufy's explosions of colour can be seen from November 29 to May 4.

Last chance to see....

You only have until November 3 to catch the Orientalist pictures of John Frederick Lewis at the Watts Gallery in Surrey. Closing on the same date at the Queen's Gallery in Edinburgh is Russia, Royalty and the Romanovs, a show we saw previously in London.

Images

Sir Thomas Lawrence, George IV, 1821, Royal Collection Trust. © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II 2019
Sandro Botticelli, Portrait of a Young Man, probably c. 1480-85. © The National Gallery, London
Rembrandt van Rijn, Self-Portrait, c. 1628, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Hans Baldung Grien, Death and the Maiden, c. 1520-25, Kunstmuseum Basel
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