Medieval & Renaissance Manuscripts

Book of Hours
Northern France or Flanders, ca. 1445
M.287 fol. 64v

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Shepherds: Annunciation -- Five shepherds, three wearing hats, three wearing hoods, and four shepherdesses, three wearing headdresses, dance in circle, all but two holding hands. (Scene, Sports and Games: Dancing) Another shepherd, playing bagpipe, and looking upward, sits in center of the circle amid sheep. More sheep sit in background amid rays descending from half-figure of angel, with joined hands, in rayed arc of Heaven.
Scene in meadow with flowers; stream, hills, trees, city, and possibly church in distance.
Miniature and text surrounded on three sides by gold frame, terminating with foliate ornament. Margins decorated with border of foliate and floreate ornament.