March — Plowing at Lusignan

Peasants plow, sow, and prune a vineyard in the foreground while, behind them, the turreted silhouette of the Château de Lusignan rises against the sky — a castle bound up in the legend of the fairy Mélusine, said to circle its towers as a winged serpent whenever a lord of the house was about to die. The Limbourg brothers give the labor of the land equal weight with the aristocratic legend looming over it: two versions of the same French landscape, myth and agriculture sharing a single horizon. The zodiac lunette turns from Pisces to Aries, spring's true beginning. Look for the careful differentiation of tasks across the field — sowing, harrowing, pruning — a small encyclopedia of March husbandry rendered in miniature.

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-00908