A Flemish Mythological Landscape Tapestry, Antwerp, late 17th century

possibly from the Story of Perseus and Andromeda, woven in the centre with a young man holding on to the winged horse, Pegasus,with a female and male classically dressed figures standing on an elaborate stepped balcony flanked by a spirally twisted column on square plinth support, and a sculpted lion in the foreground upon the steps, with classical sculptural detailing to a marble and bronze fountain and a wall mounted with a human headed sphinx to the right,  seated on a cloud and overlooking all below is a classical female figure with a helmet, armoured bodice and carrying a spearhead, beyond the balcony there are flanking trees and elaborate formal gardens extend into the distance, all within a four-sided border with bow-tied flowers and foliage, with a vase centre of top border, and twisted cornucopiae, centre of lower border, on a tobacco coloured ground, with clasp and shell motifs in respective to and bottom corners,

See Flemish Tapestry in European and American Collections, Studies in Honour of Guy Delmarcel, 2003, Ed. Koenraad Brosens, Article, Le peintre anversois Pieter Spierinckx (1635-1711), créateur de cartons de tapisseries, Ingrid de Meûter, pp.133-152 & pg.213, pl.2, for a weaving from the History of Ulysses, 1670-1700, Antwerp (?), workshop of Jeremias Cockx and Cornelis de Wael, after Jan Ykens and Pieter Spierinckx, which has an identical border to that of the offered lot, and incorporates a columned portico and stepped and paved balcony, on which two figures stand with formal gardens in the distance. The History of Circe and Ulysses was woven on at least twenty occasions between 1682-1688. Cornelis Wael and Jeremias Cockx took over the famous and successful Antwerp workshop of Wauters, in 1679 and worked from cartoons by Ykens and Spierinckx (who had a flourishing workhop in Antwerp in 1576, though he is known for the commissions post 1591, from his Delft workshop).

See also Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestries, London, 1999, Antwerp tapestries in the seventeenth century, pp.255-265, for discussion of the Antwerp workshops and weavers, and specific mention of the Perseus and Adromeda set, attributed in design to the cartoon painter Ijkens and produced by Jacob van der Goten.  The van der Goten workshop was active in Antwerp in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with Jan active from 1670-1700, and Jacob van der Goten worked on various mythological series, including Apollo and Perseus, and emigrated to Madrid in 1720.