Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

258. Hours of the Virgin, fol. 129v

ca. 1515

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

Ghent, Belgium
172 x 125 mm
MS M.399, fol. 129v

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

Virgin Mary: Annunciation―Within a room, a crowned Archangel Gabriel holding a scepter in his left hand raises his right hand, pointing upward. He kneels on the steps of an architectural setting that suggests a private chapel, in which the Virgin Mary kneels at prie-dieu, her right hand on an open book. The Dove of the Holy Ghost appears above her head amid rays of light and an aureole. An archway in the far wall of the room leads to a bedroom furnished with a bed and a chair. The scene is framed by a border decorated with flowers, including dianthus, a lily, and a rose, and inhabited by a caterpillar and butterflies.