A Flemish mythological tapestry, Brussels or Antwerp workshop, circa 1700-1720, possibly from the Story of Diana, after designs by Louis van Schoor and Pieter Spierinckx

For an interesting comparable of a weaving of Venus and Adonis, Brussels or Antwerp workshop, circa 1680-1720, after designs by Peter Ijkens (1648-1698) and Peter Spierinckx (1635-1711), within a similar distinctive maritime border type, depicting figures of Triton (messenger of the sea) in the lower corners, albeit woven against a pale yellow ground and not identified to a particular designer or workshop, see Koller, Zurich, 23 March 2016, lot 1083. Identified by Professor Guy Delmarcel, this tapestry was part of a larger set, comprising of nine or ten tapestries, many of which were sold through auctions in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, one of which was also sold through Koller, Zurich, 13 June 1985, lot 1312, and five were sold by Sotheby’s, Florence, 24 May 1979, lots 1398-1402. Two others are in a Genoese Private Collection. 

For discussion of Antwerp tapestries and their respective designers influence on Brussels weavings, see Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestries, 1999, pp.255-265. For further discussion on Brussels and Oudenaarde weavings from the series of Diana, with small figures in a landscape, along with tapestries from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, with comparable compositional balance and a variation of borders of which some are especially elaborate and on a tobacco ground, comparable with the present tapestry, see Ingrid de Meuter and Martine Vanwelden, Tapisseries d’Audenarde du XVIe au XVIIIe siecle, 1999, pp.220-228.