SECOND QUARTER 16TH CENTURY, POSSIBLY BRUGES OR AUDENARDE

This magnificent and rare survival, displays allegories relating to 'Vanitas', Truth, Judgement and Fidelity. The millefleurs ground relates to the very delicately drawn Franco-Flemish examples of the 15th century, while the wreath borders are much more closely related to examples from Bruges and Audenarde of the second quarter 16th century. Indeed, the sophisticated scattering of the flowers, here exceptionally divided by the ribbons, is reminiscent of the famous fragments from a set woven by Antoon Segon after designs by Lancelot Blondeel and Willem de Hollander or Joost van Beke for the council hall of the Franc in Bruges in about 1528 - 1530 (G. Delmarcel and E. Duverger, Bruges et la Tapisserie, exhibition catalogue, 1987, p. 184, fig. 3/4). A further tapestry with similar lose drawing of the flowers centered by wreaths is that bearing the arms of Salzburg and Matthäus Lang von Wellenburg which is now in the Salzburger Museum Carolino Augusteum, Salzburg (Delmarcel and Duverger, op.cit., pp. 192-193, cat. 4). However, the tonality of this tapestry is much more reminiscent of those woven in Audenarde at the period. Particularly closely related is a series of grotesques with a central medallion depicting The Story of Hercules which are today in the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, and the Museu Episcopal de Vic, Catalunya (I. De Meûter and M. Vandervelden, Tapisseries d'Audenarde du XVIe au XVIIIe siècle, Tielt, 1999, pp. 71 and 124 - 125). That series, bearing the town mark of Audenarde, is believed to date from the 1550s.