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Lot Essay
From the Medieval period until the land reforms of the 20th century, the great estates of the Low Countries and France provided some of the best hunting in Europe. Hunting was a passion for both the royal courts and the aristocracy. Nor was this an idle passion; hunting was often the very best way a young prince or nobleman could gain the kind of training he needed for war. While hunting any animal was a privilege, the hunting of stags, the largest animal of the Northern European forests, was the most rarified hunt of all. It required enormous tracts of fenced land to sustain the deer herds – land that was dedicated only to sport rather than farming or forestry – and also a small army of gamekeepers, foresters, as well as maintaining stables and kennels, all of which only added to the exclusivity of hunting – and the allure.
To find visually-related hunting scenes in the early 16th century, we must turn not to landscape painting which was only conceived much later in the 16th century, but rather look backward to Medieval manuscripts. These miniature scenes are much closer to the present tapestry. One example is Le livre de la chasse written by Gaston Phoebus, also known as Gaston III, comte de Foix (1331-1391), and made in Paris circa 1407. It is earlier in date than the present tapestry, but it was such a famous series of illustrations that its effect was still being felt, visually, a century later when the present tapestry was made. There is one version in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York and another in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
These hunting tapestries, among the most expensive and desirable of all late-Medieval household luxuries, were magnificent visual illustrations of both the owner’s wealth and taste, but also their ability to participate in this most exclusive pastime of the hunt.
To find visually-related hunting scenes in the early 16th century, we must turn not to landscape painting which was only conceived much later in the 16th century, but rather look backward to Medieval manuscripts. These miniature scenes are much closer to the present tapestry. One example is Le livre de la chasse written by Gaston Phoebus, also known as Gaston III, comte de Foix (1331-1391), and made in Paris circa 1407. It is earlier in date than the present tapestry, but it was such a famous series of illustrations that its effect was still being felt, visually, a century later when the present tapestry was made. There is one version in the Morgan Library and Museum, New York and another in Paris at the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.
These hunting tapestries, among the most expensive and desirable of all late-Medieval household luxuries, were magnificent visual illustrations of both the owner’s wealth and taste, but also their ability to participate in this most exclusive pastime of the hunt.