A Pastoral Tapestry Fragment, Franco-Flemish circa 1510-1530

woven with two central camels, one of which is riden by a cloaked male figure, before them stand two further male figures, one of which holds the rope of a tethered lioness, he is flanked by a figures collecting grass from the side of the river bank in the foreground, to feed the animals, a shepherd looks on from within an enclosure with picket fence with intermittant posts with elaborate finials, fruiting trees and birds extend across the tapestry, sheep and a deer graze in the hills behind, and building extend across the horizon; lacking side borders, with a narrow orange and yellow lozenge top border, and narrow scrolling foliate and flowering lower border, on a saffron ground, with later border reweaving in sections, associated sections, reweaving

For the most comparable set of tapestry panels, with simple narrow borders of trails of flowers, set within enclosures entitled Hunting Park, dated 1515-1535, see Cavallo, Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, pp.575-585, cat.49, and 49d in particular, Hunting for birds with a hawk and crossbow, which has considerable similar elements to the offered panel including the format of design, and the use of the fenced enclosure with characteristic poles with elaborate finials, the same grouping of sheep in the top right corner, the same figural types including the colour scheme of the snoods, hats, tunics, red and white breeches and hose. The tethered wild animal is also incorporated, and the inclusion of a stream of water in the foreground. Cavallo, ibid, discusses at length the iconography of this subject matter.

Another comparable tapestry series, entitled the Camel Caravan, Franco-Netherlandish, early 16th century, from a group of fifteen, has been associated with the workshops of John and Anthony Grenier and Arnoult Poissonnier, and described in their inventories, as `in the manner of Portugal and India’. One panel is discussed and illustrated in, The Burrell Collection, Glasgow Museums and Art Galleries, 1983, pp.106-108, fig.10. The series, inspired by the travels of the Portuguese explorer, Vasco de Gama, to the East Indies in 1497-9 and 1502-3, also reveals the influence of the procession of exotic beasts that took place through the streets of Antwerp in 1502, and the camel in both the Burrell Collection panel and the offered lot is very similar and has a similarly tasselled harness and small horns upon its head.

Also see Ebeltje Hartkamp-Jonxis and Hillie Smit, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2004, pp.42-43, cat.7a-7b, for two early 16^th centry, South Netherlands tapestry fragments, on the medieval theme of Wild men and women, which include the exotic animals, including a camel and distinctive fruiting tree design and evidence of an enclosure, as in the offered panel.