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About This Work
A carpenter works with a large saw at a bench while a woman in formal attire performs needlework in the foreground. In the upper right, the sun god Apollo appears within a radiant cloud, driving his chariot over a distant landscape where a farmer plows a field. The composition emphasizes the peak of daily human industry corresponding to the sun's highest point in the sky.
This work reflects the Renaissance concept of the correspondence between the macrocosm of celestial cycles and the microcosm of human activity. It illustrates the late 16th-century Mannerist interest in natural philosophy, specifically the division of time and the astrological influence of the sun on terrestrial labor.