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...
You've bought a new painting, but it's actually one of a set of five. Nice idea to borrow the other four for a few months so you can admire them all together, as they were originally meant to be seen. And let the public in for free. That's what the National Gallery in London has done to mark the acquisition of The Fortress of Königstein from the North by Bernardo Bellotto. If you're in central London, take 20 minutes out of your day to transport yourself to 18th-century Saxony for Bellotto: The Königstein Views Reunited . If you follow the River Elbe upstream from Dresden towards the Czech border, you'll eventually come to the fortress on the right-hand side. It's in an area known as Saxon Switzerland, not Swiss in the sense of towering mountain peaks, but distinguished rather by rocky outcrops such as the one the fortification sits on. Bellotto (1722-80), the nephew of Canaletto, was court painter to August III, the Elector of Saxony, and painted around 30...