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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 December

The 17th- and 18th-century Palace of Versailles wasn't just wealth, pomp and opulence; it was also a place where France's kings encouraged and promoted scientific research and innovation. The story will be revealed in Versailles: Science & Splendour at the Science Museum in London from December 12 to April 21, featuring historic objects and art from Versailles and other French collections. 
A new free display at the National Gallery focuses on a painting that's going back on show after 10 years of conservation. Parmigianino: The Vision of Saint Jerome explores a work created by an artist seen by the Pope as another Raphael. December 5 to March 9. 

Can you deduce what a pronkstilleven is? It's a Dutch word, and the painting below is the perfect illustration. One of the Golden Age artists who specialised in the genre of sumptuous still lives was Jan Davidsz de Heem; he painted four enormous such scenes that are now being displayed together for the first time ever at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge. Picturing Excess: Jan Davidsz de Heem is open from December 3 to April 13, and it's free to get in.  
If you go off to Paris this month, you're sure of a big surprise. It might be a bit cold for a picnic, but (almost) every bear that ever there was will be gathered at the Musée des Arts décoratifs for My Teddy Bear, the history of everybody's favourite soft toy (and there are 400 bears in the MAD collection!). The show runs from December 4 to June 22. 

Last chance to see.... 

December 10 is the final day for the retrospective at the Royal Academy in London of the career of Michael Craig-Martin. He's best known for his colourful paintings of everyday objects, but his early conceptual-art period is a lot more fun that you might expect. 
And you have most of Advent to see some of the original artwork behind the iconic images of The Snowman and Father Christmas in Bloomin' Brilliant: The Life and Works of Raymond Briggs at Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft in East Sussex. Other characters created by one of Britain's most beloved illustrators, including Fungus the Bogeyman, are also part of the fun, which ends on December 22. 

Images

Print showing ascent of a Montgolfier balloon, 1783. © Science Museum Group
Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1683/84), A Banquet Still Life, 1643, Private collection, New York
Michael Craig-Martin (born 1941), Eye of the Storm, 2003, Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin. © Michael Craig-Martin. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates Ltd. Image courtesy of Gagosian
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