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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. 273v
Description:
John Baptist: Beheading—An executioner, supporting himself with a sword held in his right hand, places the nimbed head of John Baptist on a platter held by Salome. On the ground beside him is the decapitated body of John Baptist. To the left, a male figure appears in an archway of a building decorated with sculpture. The head of a male figure is visible in a niche in a far wall. The scene is framed by a border decorated with flowers and inhabited by butterflies and a snail.
Credits:
Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.