MS M.399, fol. 4v

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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. 4v
Description: 

Occupations of the month: March―A man wearing fur-lined garments stands on a pathway beside another man and converses with two laborers digging beds in a garden with spades. A hedge and a stone wall enclose the garden. Further along the pathway, a man on a ladder ties vines to an arbor. To the right, a man and a woman converse on a bridge that enters a castle surrounded by a moat. A stork's nest surmounts the chimney of the castle. In the fields beyond the castle, two figures converse. Another figure plows a field.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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