Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

Plan your visit. 225 Madison Avenue at 36th Street, New York, NY 10016.

366. Hours of the Cross, fol. 183v

ca. 1515

Da Costa hours
Illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)

Ghent, Belgium
172 x 125 mm
MS M.399, fol. 183v

Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), 1910

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.