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.

332. MS M.399, fol. 166v

ca. 1515

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

Ghent, Belgium
172 x 125 mm
MS M.399, fol. 166v

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

Christ: Circumcision―Within a temple, the Virgin Mary, who is veiled and has a rayed nimbus, holds a nude, nimbed Christ Child in her draped hands over a draped altar. Mohel circumcises Him with a knife. To the left, Joseph and two women, one veiled and one wearing a headdress, look on. To the right behind Mohel, a man holds a candle.
The scene is framed by a border with a landscape inhabited by rabbits and a squirrel in a forest and a woman on a road holding a basket. In the distance, beyond a bridge over a river, a man walks toward buildings.