Attributed to the Limbourg Brothers

This entry is not a person. It stands for the Louvre's cautious suggestion that a panel, a Pietà with Saint John, the Virgin and two angels on a gold ground, may be the work of the Limbourg brothers. The museum files the picture under the French school and sets a question mark before their name.

The caution has a reason. Herman, Paul and Johan van Limburg, three brothers from Nijmegen in the duchy of Guelders, are known almost entirely as painters of books. Their fame rests on the miniatures of the Très Riches Heures, the prayer book they left unfinished for Duke Jean de Berry, uncle of the French king Charles VI, when all three died in 1416. No panel painting has ever been securely given to them, which is why the Louvre names them and still stops at a question mark.