July — Shearing and Harvest at Poitiers

Two forms of high-summer labor unfold side by side: sheep are sheared in the foreground while, across the river, reapers cut wheat with sickles — and behind both, the Château de Poitiers, one of the Duke of Berry's own principal residences, anchors the scene in his personal domain rather than a generic countryside. The heat of the month is legible in the reapers' rolled sleeves and the shorn sheep's bare pink skin. The zodiac lunette carries Cancer into Leo. Where January displayed the Duke's wealth in gold plate, July quietly displays it in land — his own castle standing sentinel over the harvest that sustained it.

Maker

The Limbourg Brothers (Herman, Paul & Jean de Limbourg); later folios completed by Jean Colombe

Date

c. 1412–1416

Medium of the original

Illuminated manuscript

Original held by

Musée Condé, Chantilly

Credit

Musée Condé, Chantilly · via Wikimedia Commons

Rights

Public domain, verified

Catalogue number

PA-00912