MS M.399, fol. 13v

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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. 13v
Description: 

Occupation of the month: December―Within a snowy landscape, a woman holding a pan collects blood from a pig being slaughtered by a man with a knife. To the left, a woman stands beside an inn with a sign depicting a sun or a star. Figures appear in the windows. On the road beyond the inn, a man sits astride one of two horses pulling a cart. Figures appear on a hill in the landscape.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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