MS M.399, fol. 6v

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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. 6v
Description: 

Occupations of the Month: May―Four figures, including a helmsman, a man playing a pipe, and a woman playing a lute, are in a boat on a lake surrounding a castle. A flask hangs over the edge of the boat. A heron stands on the shore beside the boat, and swans swim on the lake. To the left, horsemen pass a building while riding on a road alongside lake.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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