Beschreibung:

Twelve miniatures of the occupations (with a dog, horse, sheep and a hog) and Zodiac Symbols (with a lion, centaur, crab, scorpion, fish, ram and goat with a fish’s tail), on cuttings probably from the Calendar of a large Book of Hours, illuminated paintings on parchment [France (probably Paris), first few decades of the sixteenth century] Six long thin cuttings, with miniatures of the occupations in the foreground, the zodiac symbols picked out in shading and liquid gold penstrokes in the skies above, each within an impressive and large nineteenth-century brown and gold rectangular box-frame, with red velvet surround, each cutting approximately 140 by 50 mm., the frame 310 by 525 mm. by 50 mm. These appealingly presented cuttings include enchanting scenes of daily medieval life, showing the occupations a person should embark on in each month of the year. The artist was a skilled follower of Jean Pichore the most sought after Parisian illuminator and miniaturist in the first two decades of the sixteenth century (see Zohl, Jean Pichore 2005). The work here is finely detailed and has great charm, with the dog sleeping in the foreground of the first cutting adding much to the warmth of this interior scene. The subjects are: killing a hog and Capricorn; eating and drinking and Aquarius; cutting the corn and Virgo; a king holding a hawking lure and Gemini; sowing seeds and Libra; picking flowers and Taurus; working the fields and Aries; treading grapes and Cancer; shearing sheep and Scorpio; repairing plough shears and Leo; warming feet by a fire and Pisces; and threshing corn and Sagittarius.