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Lot Essay
This fascinating tapestry is part of a small group featuring an interesting twist on the imagery of 'feuilles de choux' tapestries, whereby townscapes are juxtaposed directly with dream-like thickets of foliage with fantastical beasts, thus combining the real and the imaginary in close proximity.
D. and P. Chevalier and P.-F. Bertrand attribute tapestries from this group to the workshops of the Marche district in France (Les Tapisseries d'Aubusson et de Felletin, Paris, 1988, pp. 24 - 27) on the basis of some early descriptions in inventories.
E. Standen on the other hand attributes this type of tapestry more loosely to Flanders or Holland (European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. I, cat. 26, pp. 185 - 186).
A similar tapestry omitting narrative scene and including such animals as a giraffe and turkey is illustrated in Gray Bennett, A.: Five Centuries of Tapestry, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1992, cat. 35, p. 137, while another with a similar juxtaposition of a townscape with dense foliage inhabited by fantastical beasts including a unicorn and a hydra, is illustrated in Boccara, J.: Ames de Laine et de Soie, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 1988, p. 77.
D. and P. Chevalier and P.-F. Bertrand attribute tapestries from this group to the workshops of the Marche district in France (Les Tapisseries d'Aubusson et de Felletin, Paris, 1988, pp. 24 - 27) on the basis of some early descriptions in inventories.
E. Standen on the other hand attributes this type of tapestry more loosely to Flanders or Holland (European Post-Medieval Tapestries and Related Hangings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1985, vol. I, cat. 26, pp. 185 - 186).
A similar tapestry omitting narrative scene and including such animals as a giraffe and turkey is illustrated in Gray Bennett, A.: Five Centuries of Tapestry, The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, San Francisco, 1992, cat. 35, p. 137, while another with a similar juxtaposition of a townscape with dense foliage inhabited by fantastical beasts including a unicorn and a hydra, is illustrated in Boccara, J.: Ames de Laine et de Soie, Saint-Rémy-en-l'Eau, 1988, p. 77.