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During the Hundred Years' War against the English and beyond, French kings from Charles VII (1422-61) to François I (1515-47) had their court in the Loire valley. It was there that they built many of their finest residences. Jean Fouquet worked there, presumably after having done his apprenticeship as a miniaturist in Paris. A journey he undertook to Rome provided him with further inspiration, which he incorporated into his illustrations with great ingenuity. Most significant are the miniatures for the Book of Hours for Étienne Chevalier, secretary and treasurer to Charles VII. Here we see landscapes typical of the early Italian Renaissance, along with depictions of palaces and castles typical of the Limburg brothers or the Parisian School.
Forty of the magnificent miniatures of Étienne Chevalier's Book of Hours are now treasured possessions of the Museum of Chantilly.
With Fouquet, who worked for the French ruling house together with other artists from Tourain, the great age of French illumination came to an end. The appearance of Robert Campin, Jan van Eyck and Rogier van der Weyden meant that the center of gravity of European art shifted to Flanders and the Netherlands.
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