Painting of the Day: A Leaf from a Calendar, 1510-60

Leaf from a Calendar or Book of Hours
1510-60
Simon Bening
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Dating between 1510 and 1560, this double-sided leaf is thought to be from the calendar of a book of hours.  The sides appear to illustrate, on one side, the month of April, and, on the other, side the month of May.

April depicts music-makers by a canal while in the fields beyond them a cow is being milked as sheep are taken out to graze and stork makes its nest on a chimney pot.

Meanwhile, May shows a scene of typical May Day merrymaking, including a boat trip with musicians, a floral procession and joyful dancing in a town square.

This is the work of Simon Bening, from Bruges, who was one of the most celebrated illuminators of his time. He worked mainly in Bruges. His works often look more contemporary than they really are and he was responsible for many an illuminated manuscript like this one.  

In the late medieval period, Books of Hours, like the one from which this page was taken, were a type of prayer book meant for private use by the worshipful. These portable books consisted of psalms and devotions for the eight canonical hours of the day.

Painting of the Day: The "Spanish Forger" Jonah and the Whale, 1900

"Jonah and the Whale"
by "The Spanish Forger"
c. 1900
The Victoria & Albert Museum

The artist who was known as “The Spanish Forger” was the “Neal Caffrey” of the early Twentieth Century—except maybe for the sparking blue eyes and cool fedoras. In the mid Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries both in Europe (especially Britain) and in the U.S., the fashionable elite turned their attention to collecting medieval panel paintings and illuminated manuscripts. “The Spanish Forger” seized upon this opportunity, noting an opportunity to not only make some money, but to put his talents to good use, and soon became one of the most skilled and prolific forgers in history.

This forger was responsible for a host of paintings which the V&A says are, “of sweet faced figures set against a background of steep hills and castles derived from the study of illustrated books on the Middle Ages.”

For decades, these expert forgeries were attributed to the Fifteenth Century Spanish painter, Jorge Inglés. The works were discovered to be forgeries in the 1930s. And, yet, we know almost nothing of the person called “The Spanish Forger.” He’s given this name because of the nature of the paintings he produced, but we can’t be sure that he was Spanish. In fact, it is thought that the artist was active in France in the late 19th century and early 20th centuries.

Here we see one of the Spanish Forger’s works--one of a group of five or six miniatures of similar size and borders. The miniatures are very cleverly painted on the back of cuttings from a real Fifteenth or Sixteenth Century page from an Italian choir book.

The scene depicts Jonah and the Whale from the Biblical Old Testament--at the moment when Jonah is thrown overboard from the ship upon which he sailed. The whale can readies himself to swallow Jonah.

The work of the forger is very convincing. Chemical dating would have indicated that the page itself was quite right in age. However, the forger, as clever as he was made one mistake. The headdresses that the men are wearing had not been developed in the fifteenth century. This anachronistic error gave away his entire con. 

Painting of the Day: A Leaf from a Calendar, 1510-60

Leaf from a Calendar or Book of Hours
1510-60
Simon Bening
This and all related images from:
The Victoria & Albert Museum

Dating between 1510 and 1560, this double-sided leaf is thought to be from the calendar of a book of hours.  The sides appear to illustrate, on one side, the month of April, and, on the other, side the month of May.

April depicts music-makers by a canal while in the fields beyond them a cow is being milked as sheep are taken out to graze and stork makes its nest on a chimney pot.

Meanwhile, May shows a scene of typical May Day merrymaking, including a boat trip with musicians, a floral procession and joyful dancing in a town square.

This is the work of Simon Bening, from Bruges, who was one of the most celebrated illuminators of his time. He worked mainly in Bruges. His works often look more contemporary than they really are and he was responsible for many an illuminated manuscript like this one. 

In the late medieval period, Books of Hours, like the one from which this page was taken, were a type of prayer book meant for private use by the worshipful.  These portable books consisted of psalms and devotions for the eight canonical hours of the day.