The Labours of the Months: May

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.This is the most puzzling picture of the series. A young man holds two rods, with one crossing the other at the top. It looks as though he might be making a supporting frame for vegetables or fruit, but there is a tradition in Italy for one of the spring months to be represented by a youth holding crossed branches, often in bud, and this may be what we see here.The man wears a straw hat and is barefoot, suggesting that this is one of the warmer months, possibly May. He probably would have faced the barefoot young man who has cut a sheaf of corn with his scythe, in the picture we think may represent June.