For more details on calendar pages or the Hours of Joanna of Castile, please see the entry for January 2012.

Calendar pages for April, Hours of Joanna of Castile, Bruges, between 1496 and 1506, Additional 18852, ff. 4v-5

This opening for April contains two separate but connected scenes that celebrate the arrival of spring.  On the left are some shepherds with their flock; one is at work shearing while another guides the sheep into a paddock (and we would welcome ideas about what the man in the centre is doing).  At the top of the right hand folio is a small painting of Taurus the bull.  Below, a woman holding a spindle stands with a well-dressed man; the courting theme is continued by another couple on horseback, who seem much more interested in each other than in where their horses are headed.