Family Reunion

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Medieval manuscripts usually live tucked away in the world's libraries, and are seldom seen in public, leaving medieval art lovers with expensive facsimile editions as a disappointing substitute. But in the Dutch town of Nijmegen, 60 km southeast of Utrecht, there's a rare opportunity to see the real thing.

For the first time since the 15th century, brothers Herman, Paul and Jean Limbourg's brilliant and colorful miniature illuminations will be shown together at the Valkhof Museum in "The Limbourg Brothers, Nijmegen Masters at the French Court (1400-1416)" until Nov. 20. The exhibition shows four out of six surviving manuscripts, which the brothers illuminated while in residence at the Paris court from 1400 to 1416 — the year all three died, presumably from the plague. It also places the works in the context of contemporary art, which demonstrates a conscientious interest in small details and animal anatomy, quite new at the time.

Unfortunately, the museum couldn't have it all. Les Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame (circa 1410-12) is at Paris' Bibliothèque National and is too fragile to travel, and the brothers' most famous work, Les Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry (circa 1411-16), is at the Musée Condé in Chantilly, near Paris; the museum is bound by contract not to lend it out. But the Valkhof show makes up for these missing pieces in a creative way: it features an animation of two scenes, February and April, from Les Très Riches Heures. The miniatures have been digitally redrawn and brought to life in a short video, through which the viewer is taken on a fly-through.

The Late Gothic paintings lend themselves astonishingly well to this modern technique — it's hard not to feel chilled by the snowy February "landscape." "The Limbourg brothers are about graphic and atmospheric detail," says Pieter Roelofs, curator of the exhibition. "It is the painstaking art, often with one-hair brushes, of re-creating the world they saw on parchment." And indeed, in all 35 miniatures that are assembled, it's the details — the facial expressions of the cavaliers and ladies on a hunt, and even their dogs — that give the viewer the sensation of witnessing the scenes firsthand. tel: (31-24) 3608805; www.gebroedersvanlimburg.nl