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Sometimes heaven has a soft spot for fools
Following up on this entry...
We talked to several third-party ticket-sellers, one of whom said "yes, our package ticket includes entry to the Tres Riches Heures exhibition," so we bought some tickets. I was skeptical, since the Chateau had made very clear that all its tickets for the remaining three days of the exhibition were sold out, but we figured there was a chance we'd get in, and if not, we'd see a 15th/19th-century palace full of artwork, including some other books of hours.
So we took the train to Chantilly this morning, went straight to the exhibition (in a separate building a few hundred meters from the Chateau proper), and asked (a) whether our tickets included entry to the exhibition (no), and (b) whether there was a way to get on stand-by in case of cancellations (also no). So, in hope of making the day not a total waste, we went back into the Chateau and visited "Un Autre Historie des Livres des Heures," a display of other books of hours in the permanent collection that were not part of the Tres Riches Heures exhibition. Mostly 16th and 17th century, an aesthetic that doesn't really appeal to either of us, but there were a few 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th-century Heures.
The building did indeed start as a 15th-century castle. In the 16th or 17th century, some owner added an extra building as an entrance hall. Then during the French Revolution, the original building was completely destroyed, leaving only the entrance hall. In the late 19th century, the Duc d'Aumale rebuilt the original castle, to late-19th-century standards, and filled it with a collection of art said to be second within France only to the Louvre's.
Anyway, we went on to explore the rest of the late Duke's art collection. Everything was organized according to the standards of the late 19th century, and according to the Duke's will, it has to stay that way, so one would find a lot of boring 18th- and 19th-century portraiture on the same wall with
a Holbein, a Memling, and a couple of anonymous 14th- and 15th-century pieces. At one point the Duke came across a couple of cut-out leaves from another 15th-century Book of Hours (the Heures du Chevalier Etienne, IIRC), bought them, and went on a personal quest to find as many as possible of the remaining leaves, which are now all separately mounted in a small, darkened room called "le Sanctuarie", along with two Raphaels and some other things I don't remember. Of course, all of this was in a late-19th-century prince's palace, which (as![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shalmestere put it) "feels like being in Donald Trump's home": lots of gold, lots of fancy/tacky ornaments, really not our style. But it was sorta interesting finding the occasional piece of pre-1500 art amid the rest.
By this time we were tired and hungry. We went back to the exhibition hall and asked again whether we could get in, and were told "no, but if you come back at 4:00, we might be able to get you in." It was about 1:30, so we walked down the street towards centre-ville looking for lunch. One or two places were way more expensive than what we wanted to spend on lunch, and most others were "complete" and about to stop serving for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner. The tenth place we stopped, "The English Place", didn't look very promising, but it was open, and we were starving. And in fact it wasn't very good, but at least we had something in our stomachs before walking back to the exhibition hall to see whether the 4:00 plan would work. We asked somebody at the door, and he said "Perhaps at 4:30," and then added "But you could just buy a ticket at the shop."
"Wait, what? Vraiement? Mais n'est pas complete?"
"No, not now."
So we went to the exhibition gift shop, prepared to get yet another contradictory story, butshalmestere went to the counter and said "Deux adultes, s'il vous plais", as though it were no big deal, and they handed her two tickets to the Tres Riches Heures exhibition, valid for the rest of today, for 3 euros apiece. The day was looking up.
And five minutes later we were in the exhibition hall. Or rather, standing in line behind lots of other people trying to get into the exhibition hall, most of whom were listening to a tour-guide rather than moving. I could understand why they're so careful about not letting too many people into the hall at once. Anyway, before we'd gotten anywhere near the Books of Hours, we heard the tour-guide saying something about the "Codex Chantilly, un manuscrit de musique medieval," and our ears perked up. We're familiar with the Chantilly Codex -- we have a facsimile of it at home, and have often played music from it -- and had been idly wondering whether we'd be able to see it too along with the Books of Hours, and here it was, open to a page of Solage.
Oh, and in the next cabinet was the marriage contract of Jean and Jeanne, Duc et Duchesse de Berry, complete with wax seal on the strings threaded through the bottom margin. No, they weren't fingerloop-braided.
Also the personal seal of the Duc de Berry, with a bear and a swan. The day was decidedly looking up.
The exhibition would have been impressive enough if it had only included the 26 unbound calendar pages from Jean Duc de Berry's Tres Riches Heures, mounted in windows so people could see both sides. More impressive, they had also borrowed (or already had in the permanent collection) the Grandes Heures, the Belles Heures, the Petits Heures, the Tres Belles Heures de Notre Dame, the Psalter, and a couple of other related books, all of which Duc Jean had also commissioned and owned. As the wall caption points out, it's probably the first time all of these Heures have been in the same room since Jean died in 1416. But to fill things out, they supported this with probably fifty other illustrated books from the same era, showing the artists who had influenced the Limbourg Brothers, the artists who were influenced by the Limbourg Brothers, the artists who finished the Limbourg Brothers' unfinished work, etc. Wow.
We stopped again at the exhibition shop to get an exhibition catalogue (which alas is not available in English), then walked hurriedly to the train station to catch a train back to Paris. There was only one ticket kiosk in the station, and it wasn't working, so there was an enormous line in front of the desk of the one ticket-selling agent. The train arrived before we were anywhere near the front of the line, and the next one was two hours later, so we boarded without tickets and figured we would pay whatever extra charge there was on-board. But nobody ever came to check our tickets, so we got off in Paris without paying, took the subway to our neighborhood, got some dinner (much better and more substantial than lunch!), got some groceries, and returned to our tiny AirBnB.
We talked to several third-party ticket-sellers, one of whom said "yes, our package ticket includes entry to the Tres Riches Heures exhibition," so we bought some tickets. I was skeptical, since the Chateau had made very clear that all its tickets for the remaining three days of the exhibition were sold out, but we figured there was a chance we'd get in, and if not, we'd see a 15th/19th-century palace full of artwork, including some other books of hours.
So we took the train to Chantilly this morning, went straight to the exhibition (in a separate building a few hundred meters from the Chateau proper), and asked (a) whether our tickets included entry to the exhibition (no), and (b) whether there was a way to get on stand-by in case of cancellations (also no). So, in hope of making the day not a total waste, we went back into the Chateau and visited "Un Autre Historie des Livres des Heures," a display of other books of hours in the permanent collection that were not part of the Tres Riches Heures exhibition. Mostly 16th and 17th century, an aesthetic that doesn't really appeal to either of us, but there were a few 12th, 13th, 14th, and 15th-century Heures.
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The building did indeed start as a 15th-century castle. In the 16th or 17th century, some owner added an extra building as an entrance hall. Then during the French Revolution, the original building was completely destroyed, leaving only the entrance hall. In the late 19th century, the Duc d'Aumale rebuilt the original castle, to late-19th-century standards, and filled it with a collection of art said to be second within France only to the Louvre's.
Anyway, we went on to explore the rest of the late Duke's art collection. Everything was organized according to the standards of the late 19th century, and according to the Duke's will, it has to stay that way, so one would find a lot of boring 18th- and 19th-century portraiture on the same wall with
a Holbein, a Memling, and a couple of anonymous 14th- and 15th-century pieces. At one point the Duke came across a couple of cut-out leaves from another 15th-century Book of Hours (the Heures du Chevalier Etienne, IIRC), bought them, and went on a personal quest to find as many as possible of the remaining leaves, which are now all separately mounted in a small, darkened room called "le Sanctuarie", along with two Raphaels and some other things I don't remember. Of course, all of this was in a late-19th-century prince's palace, which (as
shalmestere put it) "feels like being in Donald Trump's home": lots of gold, lots of fancy/tacky ornaments, really not our style. But it was sorta interesting finding the occasional piece of pre-1500 art amid the rest.By this time we were tired and hungry. We went back to the exhibition hall and asked again whether we could get in, and were told "no, but if you come back at 4:00, we might be able to get you in." It was about 1:30, so we walked down the street towards centre-ville looking for lunch. One or two places were way more expensive than what we wanted to spend on lunch, and most others were "complete" and about to stop serving for a couple of hours between lunch and dinner. The tenth place we stopped, "The English Place", didn't look very promising, but it was open, and we were starving. And in fact it wasn't very good, but at least we had something in our stomachs before walking back to the exhibition hall to see whether the 4:00 plan would work. We asked somebody at the door, and he said "Perhaps at 4:30," and then added "But you could just buy a ticket at the shop."
"Wait, what? Vraiement? Mais n'est pas complete?"
"No, not now."
So we went to the exhibition gift shop, prepared to get yet another contradictory story, but
shalmestere went to the counter and said "Deux adultes, s'il vous plais", as though it were no big deal, and they handed her two tickets to the Tres Riches Heures exhibition, valid for the rest of today, for 3 euros apiece. The day was looking up.And five minutes later we were in the exhibition hall. Or rather, standing in line behind lots of other people trying to get into the exhibition hall, most of whom were listening to a tour-guide rather than moving. I could understand why they're so careful about not letting too many people into the hall at once. Anyway, before we'd gotten anywhere near the Books of Hours, we heard the tour-guide saying something about the "Codex Chantilly, un manuscrit de musique medieval," and our ears perked up. We're familiar with the Chantilly Codex -- we have a facsimile of it at home, and have often played music from it -- and had been idly wondering whether we'd be able to see it too along with the Books of Hours, and here it was, open to a page of Solage.
Oh, and in the next cabinet was the marriage contract of Jean and Jeanne, Duc et Duchesse de Berry, complete with wax seal on the strings threaded through the bottom margin. No, they weren't fingerloop-braided.
Also the personal seal of the Duc de Berry, with a bear and a swan. The day was decidedly looking up.
The exhibition would have been impressive enough if it had only included the 26 unbound calendar pages from Jean Duc de Berry's Tres Riches Heures, mounted in windows so people could see both sides. More impressive, they had also borrowed (or already had in the permanent collection) the Grandes Heures, the Belles Heures, the Petits Heures, the Tres Belles Heures de Notre Dame, the Psalter, and a couple of other related books, all of which Duc Jean had also commissioned and owned. As the wall caption points out, it's probably the first time all of these Heures have been in the same room since Jean died in 1416. But to fill things out, they supported this with probably fifty other illustrated books from the same era, showing the artists who had influenced the Limbourg Brothers, the artists who were influenced by the Limbourg Brothers, the artists who finished the Limbourg Brothers' unfinished work, etc. Wow.
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
We stopped again at the exhibition shop to get an exhibition catalogue (which alas is not available in English), then walked hurriedly to the train station to catch a train back to Paris. There was only one ticket kiosk in the station, and it wasn't working, so there was an enormous line in front of the desk of the one ticket-selling agent. The train arrived before we were anywhere near the front of the line, and the next one was two hours later, so we boarded without tickets and figured we would pay whatever extra charge there was on-board. But nobody ever came to check our tickets, so we got off in Paris without paying, took the subway to our neighborhood, got some dinner (much better and more substantial than lunch!), got some groceries, and returned to our tiny AirBnB.
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Wow, that day definitely turned out better than it started!