The Labours of the Months: September

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.