Da Costa hours
Illuminated by Simon Bening (1483/84–1561)
Purchased by J. Pierpont Morgan (1837–1913), 1910
Occupations of the month: March―A man wearing fur-lined garments stands on a pathway beside another man and converses with two laborers digging beds in a garden with spades. A hedge and a stone wall enclose the garden. Further along the pathway, a man on a ladder ties vines to an arbor. To the right, a man and a woman converse on a bridge that enters a castle surrounded by a moat. A stork's nest surmounts the chimney of the castle. In the fields beyond the castle, two figures converse. Another figure plows a field.
The scene is within an illusionistic wood frame.
Image courtesy of Akademische Druck- u. Verlagsanstalt, Graz/Austria.