MS M.399, fol. 12v

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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. 12v
Description: 

Occupation of the month: November―Within a farmyard enclosed by buildings, including a dovecote, two men, within a ring of flax laid out on the ground, break flax with implements. To the left under a shed, a woman scutches flax with a scutching knife. She is seated on a chair beside a bundle of flax. A hen and pigs inhabit the farmyard. Within a building to the left, a man appears in a doorway raising an implement, possibly a flail.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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