The Labours of the Months: January

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 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.An old man sits indoors by the fire with his elbow propped on the fireplace or stove, and his forehead leaning on his hand. He pulls his jacket closer round himself and wears a yellow wrap or blanket against the cold. The interior of his room is bare and simple, and not in good repair – the plaster has fallen from the brick wall beneath the window. This might be the home of a farm labourer, although this man looks too elderly to work in the fields.This little picture differs from the others in the series, in which young men are shown outdoors in what appears to be the same cultivated landscape. It probably represents the coldest month, January, which is sometimes personified as an old man.