2-713-346 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

April - lovers in a garden, 15th century, (1939). April traditionally marked the beginning of spring and was associated with love. In medieval iconography the enclosed garden became the special place for the expression of love by the aristocracy. Here a man and woman sit in an arbour with a lawn and espaliered trees in leaf. Their hands are clasped as the woman looks down demurely. The small dog in her lap symbolises faithfulness. Detail of a page from the "Heures de Charles d'Angoulême", a book of hours commissioned by Charles of Orléans (1459-1496), with miniatures mostly painted by Robinet Testard, and now in the Bibliothèque nationale de France in Paris. Published in "Verve - No. 8, Vol. II". [Verve, France, 1939]