MS M.399, fol. 279v

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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. 279v
Description: 

Apostle James, wearing a pilgrim's purse and a pilgrim's hat inscribed with two shells flanking two crossed staffs, supports himself with a staff held in his left hand on top of which he places a book with two clasps. He stands within a landscape with buildings enclosed in a fence. A man with a backpack walks up the path toward the summit of a rocky hill.
The scene is framed by a border decorated with leafless vines intertwining to form roundels, which contain jeweled pendants.

Credits: 

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