A Tapestry Pastoral Fragment, possibly Arras (France), circa 1430-1440

Related Literature :

Adelson, Candace J, European Tapestries in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Harry N Abrams, New York, 1994, Flanders and France, pp.21-365, No. 2, Esther and Ahasuerus, probably Tournai, circa 1475-85, pp.36-51.

Cavallo, Adolfo Salvatore, Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, Stylistic Development of Tapestry Design in France and the Southern Netherlands, pp.45-56.

Cleland, Elizabeth and Karafel, Lorraine, Glasgow Museums - Tapestries from the Burrell Collection, Philip Wilson Publishers, London, 2017

Delmarcel, Guy and De Meuter, Ingrid, The Cinquantenaire Tapestries: The Collection of the Royal Museums of Art and History, Snoeck Publishers, Brussels, 2023, Chp. I, Middle Ages, pp.15-39, No.4, The Battle at the Roncevaux Pass, possibly Tournai, third quarter 15th century (Inv.3643), p-27-29, and No.7, Scenes from the Youth of Hercules, possibly Tournai, 1464-1488 (Inv.3645), pp.35., Chp. II, Early Renaissance, pp.41-95, No.24, The Story of Judith and Holofernes, Tournai, circa 1520 (Inv. 3646), pp.88-90, and No.25, The Triumph of Love, possibly Tournai, 1515-1525 (Inv. 8667).

Hartkamp-Jonxis, Ebeltje and Smit, Hillie, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, 2004

Wyld, Helen, The Art of Tapestry, Philip Wilson Publishers, and National Trust Cultural Heritage Publishing, London, 2022, pp.35-39. 

Rapp Buri, A. & Stucky-Schürer, M., Zahm und Wild: kleiner Katalog zur Ausstellung Basler und Strassburger Bildteppiche des 15. Jahrhunderts(Basel: Historisches Museum Basel, 1990) pp. 358-361, fig.113.

Wingfield Digby, G F & Hefford, W., The Tapestry Collection: Medieval and Renaissance(London: H M S O, 1980), Devonshire Hunting Tapestries, pp. 12-14, pls. 2-5.

The tapestry depicts figures in fashionable clothing of the 1430’s in Europe. The male figures on horseback are not dressed in armour, but in courtly dress and therefore it is likely the subject is not one of a battle scene but a pastoral, allegorical or biblical subject. Hunting and country activities were popular subjects which represented nobilities tastes, wealth and paste times and they included taking part in all manner of hunts and events such as the wine harvest. The style and popularity of luxury tapestries woven at the time was represented in the courts of Europe at the time. A miniature from a Book of Hours of Alfonso V of Aragon, Spain (?) circa 1450 (British Library, London, Add.MS. 28962, fol. 14V), shows a room setting, with a hunting tapestry which must have been woven at an earlier date, with figures in similar dress and the stylised tree horizon, in the background behind figures of a bishop and a king. 

The offered tapestry fragment is is an early fragment from what is likely to have been a much larger tapestry. For comparables of this date and stylistic similarity in layout and design from 1375-1525, see a particularly striking set of four hunting tapestries, from the 15th century, woven in Arras (France), depicting the ‘Boar and Bear Hunt’ 1425-1430, and slightly later weavings from 1430-1440, of ‘Falconry’, ‘Swan and Otter Hunt) and the ‘Deer Hunt’, known at the Devonshire Hunts (Victoria and Albert Museum, London, Inv.202-205.1957). Although there are less horses in these tapestries, those that are depicted are not dissimilar. Other examples of this period, although of stylised and pared back motifs, shows the style of tapestry that was popular in Burgundian and French courts, including the fashion of the time, which for ladies was defined by the high forehead showing, and the hair coffered by elaborate coverings, see ‘Lady holding a falcon’, 1400-1415, South Netherlands (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York: Object.No.43.70.01), and ‘Courtiers in a Rose Garden, Lady and two Gentlemen’, 1440-1450 (The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Obj.No. 09.1372).