3-016-033 - Heritage Art/Heritage Images

Times of Day/ Aurora, 1660. From the 'Times of Day', after Nicolaes Berchem. The first in the series, it depicts dawn and features an entertaining cast of characters, both human and animal in a countryside setting. A peasant saddles his donkey with a bell around its neck, with a horned cow watching nearby. On the left, a blacksmith struggles to put a shoe on the hind foot of a donkey watched by a peasant woman carrying her child. A cave doubles up as the blacksmith's forge. A group of sheep and a donkey are all seated contentedly in the foreground.