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.

543. MS M.399, fol. 273v

ca. 1515

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

Ghent, Belgium
172 x 125 mm
MS M.399, fol. 273v

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

John Baptist: Beheading—An executioner, supporting himself with a sword held in his right hand, places the nimbed head of John Baptist on a platter held by Salome. On the ground beside him is the decapitated body of John Baptist. To the left, a male figure appears in an archway of a building decorated with sculpture. The head of a male figure is visible in a niche in a far wall. The scene is framed by a border decorated with flowers and inhabited by butterflies and a snail.