MS M.399, fol. 166v

Download image: 

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. 166v
Description: 

Christ: Circumcision―Within a temple, the Virgin Mary, who is veiled and has a rayed nimbus, holds a nude, nimbed Christ Child in her draped hands over a draped altar. Mohel circumcises Him with a knife. To the left, Joseph and two women, one veiled and one wearing a headdress, look on. To the right behind Mohel, a man holds a candle.
The scene is framed by a border with a landscape inhabited by rabbits and a squirrel in a forest and a woman on a road holding a basket. In the distance, beyond a bridge over a river, a man walks toward buildings.

Credits: 

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