MS M.399, fol. 5v

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Da Costa hours
Illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)

Ghent, Belgium
ca. 1515
172 x 125 mm

Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), 1910

MS M.399, fol. 5v
Description: 

Occupations of the month: April―Within a farmyard, a woman milks a cow with a bell around its neck. To the right, a man pushes a sheep out of a sheepcote. A shepherd, holding a lamb in his left hand and a crook in his right hand, looks on. A flock of sheep and one goat follows a second shepherd along a path leading from the sheepcote. One of the ewes nurses a lamb. Beyond, a woman churns butter within a farmhouse. To the left, another woman follows a cow out of a stable beside the farmhouse.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.