Hours of the Cross, fol. 183v

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. 183v
Description: 

Christ: Crucifixion―Christ, with a rayed nimbus, is crowned with thorns and wears a short loincloth. He is affixed with three nails to a cross inscribed INRI, at the base of which are a skull and bones. Blood issues from His wounds. On the left is a nimbed and veiled Holy Woman who turns her head turned away; a nimbed Evangelist John who is standing; and the Virgin Mary with a rayed nimbus, who is kneeling with her hands clasped together. On the right is the Centurion, supporting himself with a staff, and another man. In the background is a landscape in which figures, including a horseman, walk along a road toward buildings.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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