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Tapestry
Unknown - Enlarge image
Tapestry
- Place of origin:
Flanders (region), Belgium (made)
- Date:
ca. 1500 (made)
- Artist/Maker:
Unknown (production)
- Materials and Techniques:
Tapestry woven in wool and silk
- Museum number:
232-1894
- Gallery location:
Tapestries, room 94
This is a fragment from what may have been a much larger tapestry hanging. It is a type know as millefleurs, meaning a thousand flowers. This was a very popular style in the late 15th and early 16th century, and millefleurs were woven in many different centres and workshops in Northern France and Flanders, varying much in quality. They often included small animals and birds among the flowers, like the partridges and cock here, and sometimes featured the owner's coat-of-arms, in which case the animals might be symbolic. The unicorn was associated in legend with chastity and invulnerability, since only a virgin might catch and tame it, and its horn was considered an antidote to poison.
