thumb|250px|[[Très riches heures du Duc de Berry: Month of June (Haymaking, with the duke's Paris residence and the Sainte Chapelle on the Île de la Cité in the background)
<br />Illumination on vellum, 22,5 x 13,6 cm]]
The Limbourg brothers (; ) were Dutch miniature painters (Herman, Paul, and Jean) from the city of Nijmegen. They were active in the early 15th century in France and Burgundy, working in the International Gothic style.
They painted the miniatures and decorated page margins for the best-known late medieval illuminated manuscripts, the Très Riches Heures du Duc de Berry, the Belles Heures of Jean de France, Duc de Berry, in both of which their work survives largely complete although, like many grand manuscript projects, the Très Riches Heures was not finished.
Family background and early life
A Johannes de Lymborgh appears in mid-14th century archives. He may have come from Limbourg on the Meuse to Nijmegen, then the capital of the duchy of Guelders, and appears to be the father of Arnold de Limbourch, a wood carver and sculptor whose name also appears in medieval archives. In 1385 Arnold married Mechteld Maelwael or Maloeul.
Arnold and Mechteld had six children over the next decade: the three boys, Herman, Paul, and Jean were born between and ; two more boys in the early 1390s and a daughter in the mid-1390s. In the late 1390s (probably around 1398) Herman and Jean were sent to Paris, where records from 1399 document them as apprentices to a Parisian goldsmith, a position possibly organized by their uncle. That year the goldsmith sent the boys home to Guelders during an outbreak of disease in Paris. They were captured and imprisoned in Brussels, probably because of a conflict between Brabant and Guelders, with their ransom set at 55 écus plus prison expenses. The boys' father had died that year leaving their mother destitute, unable to secure their release. Local guild members in Brussels tried to raise the funds, but six months passed, the boys were still in captivity, when Philip the Bold paid the ransom in May of 1400.
Philip the Bold
thumb|left|upright=1.1|[[Bible Moralisée ( 166 in the Bibliothèque nationale de France,]]
In February 1402 Paul and Jean were contracted by Philip to work for four years exclusively on illuminating a bible (a très belle et notable Bible).
although there is consensus that Jean and Paul Limbourg executed the manuscript.
A bible moralisée is a type of condensed and heavily illustrated bible that emerged in the 13th century. It followed a specific format in which bible passages were paired with commentary or moralizations and an image, with each page containing four pairs of images meant to dominate the page. Typically such a bible contained more than 5000 painted miniatures; the cost and labor involved in such a production was so great that only royalty commissioned them. Manuscript 166 in Paris is an almost verbatim copy of the bible moralisée commissioned by Philip's father John II of France, known as 167, which contains 5122 miniatures.
Around this period they also painted some pages of the Très Belles Heures de Notre-Dame, a single page added to the Petites Heures de Jean de Berry (perhaps in 1412, now BnF, Paris), and other dispersed pages.
Between the period of 1408 until their deaths in 1416, the brothers are referenced in 12 extant documents and inventories, recorded by Berry's valet de chambre.<!-- find his name again --> These describe payments and exchanges of valuable gifts. Paul received two diamond rings and an emerald ring in the shape of a bear from the duke as New Year's day gifts between 1408 and 1413; 100 ecus "so he could clothe himself and be more honorable in the duke's employ"; and all the brothers received rings in 1414 and 1415. In return the brothers reciprocated with lavish gifts. By that time all three brothers had achieved the position of varlet de chambre. The duke gifted Paul with a large house in Bourges suitable to "a nobleman of the noble blood".