A FLEMISH MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY

FIRST HALF 18TH CENTURY

Details

A FLEMISH MYTHOLOGICAL TAPESTRY
First half 18th Century
Woven in wools and silks, depicting Diana and one of her attendants with two dogs, discovering Endymion and a dog lying by a pool of water, with a fountain with a youth pouring water from a vase on his shoulders, the open landscape with a river and some ruins to the right, the background with a large fortified building, the left background with a forested area and the right background with a hilly landscape, within a lappeted inner slip and to each side with a floral and foliate scrolling border, with a lappeted outer slip and a further outer blue slip, the border to top and bottom lacking, the blue outer slip to top and bottom later, minor reweaving and patching
8 ft. 5 in. x 14 ft. 5 in. (257 cm. x 435 cm.)

Lot Essay

Diana, the huntress and moon goddess, is here in the unusual role of lover and has fallen for the beautiful youth Endymion. There are several variants to the myth and one describes that Endymion had been sent to sleep by Jupiter in return for having been granted perpetual youth, while another explains it as a punishment by Zeus for Endymion having fallen in love with Zeus's wife, Hera. He was visited nightly by Diana who bore him 50 daugthers while he lay asleep in a cave on Mount Latmus in Caria. Another myth tells that Endymion was put to sleep by Diana herself so that she might enjoy his beauty undisturbed.

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