MS M.399, fol. 11v

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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. 11v
Description: 

Occupations of the month: October―On a village street lined with buildings, four men negotiate the sale of an ox tethered to the wall of a building. One man places coins in another's hand. Beyond, a man on a ladder gathers grapes from an arbor. A woman standing below looks on. In back, a man with a basket (of grapes?) on his back walks from a village gate toward a building with a sundial in the gable.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.

Credits: 

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