Italian, Venetian, The Labours of the Months: September
Full title | The Labours of the Months: September |
---|---|
Artist | Italian, Venetian |
Series | The Labours of the Months |
Date made | about 1580 |
Medium and support | Oil on canvas |
Dimensions | 13.6 × 10.6 cm |
Acquisition credit | Layard Bequest, 1916 |
Inventory number | NG3110.3 |
Location | Not on display |
Collection | Main Collection |
Previous owners |
This is one of 12 small pictures that together show the ‘labours of the months’ – the activities that take place each month throughout the farming year.
A man sits beneath a tree through which a vine has been trained. A large bunch of red grapes hangs from a leafy stem. He uses both hands to squeeze the juice from another bunch into a wooden vat on the ground at his feet. The grape juice will be turned into wine and possibly stored in the barrel we see being made in an earlier scene.
The repeated pattern of strong reds, blues, white and green in this little picture gives it a charming decorative quality.
The 12 small pictures in this group show the ‘labours of the months’ – the activities that take place each month throughout the farming year. They were painted on canvas and then each glued to a wooden panel. It is possible they were made to decorate the recessed panels of a pair of doors. The paintings seem to have been planned in pairs with the figures facing each other, and they are currently displayed in two frames in groups of six.
A man sits beneath a tree through which a vine has been trained. A large bunch of red grapes hangs from a leafy stem. He uses both hands to squeeze the juice from another bunch of grapes into a wooden vat on the ground at his feet. The grape juice will be turned into wine and possibly stored in the barrel we see being made in an earlier scene. The repeated pattern of strong reds, blues, white and green in this little picture gives it a charming decorative quality.
Download a low-resolution copy of this image for personal use.
License and download a high-resolution image for reproductions up to A3 size from the National Gallery Picture Library.
License imageThis image is licensed for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons agreement.
Examples of non-commercial use are:
- Research, private study, or for internal circulation within an educational organisation (such as a school, college or university)
- Non-profit publications, personal websites, blogs, and social media
The image file is 800 pixels on the longest side.
As a charity, we depend upon the generosity of individuals to ensure the collection continues to engage and inspire. Help keep us free by making a donation today.
You must agree to the Creative Commons terms and conditions to download this image.
The Labours of the Months
These 12 small pictures may have been made to decorate the recessed panels of a pair of doors, and seem to have been planned in pairs with the figures facing each other. They show the ‘labours of the months’ – the rural activities that take place each month throughout the year.
They are now framed in two groups of six, arranged in an order which reflects that in other, similar cycles and seems to make sense in relation to the seasons depicted, although we cannot be certain this is the original order.
January: A warmly dressed old man sits by a stove.
February: Trimming stakes with a hatchet.
March: Pruning the vines.
April: A cooper making a barrel.
May: A young man holds two rods.
June: A labourer holds a sheaf of corn he has cut with his scythe.
July: A labourer threshes grain with a flail.
August: Exhausted from fruit picking, a labourer sleeps beneath a tree.
September: The vines are harvested and the grapes pressed.
October: The field is ploughed.
November: A hunter with his hawk and hounds.
December: Slaughtering a pig.
These 12 small pictures were painted on canvas and then each glued to a wooden panel. It is possible that they were made to decorate the recessed panels of a pair of doors. The paintings seem to have been planned in pairs with the figures facing each other and are currently displayed in two frames in groups of six. They show the ‘labours of the months’ – the rural activities that take place each month throughout the year.
Each of the small scenes is painted in bright clear colours, costly ultramarine blue for the sky, strong vermilion and red lake for the clothing, with rich greens and yellows in the landscape. The restricted and repeated use of colour gives the group of little pictures a charming, decorative simplicity. All but one of the scenes show a man working outdoors on what appears to be the estate of a large villa, seen in several of the paintings, at the foot of the distant blue mountains.
The pictures are now framed in the order of the presumed months in which the activities shown take place in Italy, although we cannot be certain this is original order. The figures with bare feet probably belong to the warmer months. The cycle would have started with January, even though the Venetian year began on 1 March.
The so-called labours of the months (they are never all labours) became popular as a subject for art during the twelfth century in carvings around the doorways of Italian churches. The exhausted fruit gatherer who represents August in this cycle is also found in the carvings on the basilica of San Marco in Venice. Paintings of the months on canvas or panel were much less common than those of the four seasons.
When bought by the National Gallery in 1888, these paintings were believed to be by Bonifazio de' Pitati, a painter from Verona who settled in Venice and took over Palma Vecchio’s workshop. However they are more likely to have been painted by an artist working in the style of Lodovico Pozzoserrato (Lodewyk Toeput) from Antwerp who, after a stay in Venice, settled in Treviso in the 1580s. The figures are similar to those in his canvases of the 1580s, such as The Miraculous Draught of Fishes now in the Hermitage, St Petersburg.
The pictures are currently arranged in this order:
January: A warmly dressed old man sits by a stove.
February: Trimming stakes with a hatchet.
March: Pruning the vines.
April: A cooper making a barrel
May: A young man holds two rods.
June: A labourer holds a sheaf of corn he has cut with his scythe.
July: A labourer threshes grain with a flail.
August: Exhausted from fruit picking, a labourer sleeps beneath a tree.
September: The vines are harvested and the grapes pressed.
October: The field is ploughed.
November: A hunter with his hawk and hounds.
December: Slaughtering a pig.












More paintings by Italian, Venetian











