Woven in wools, depicting elegant courting couples in a landscape with a rider in the foreground and riders and a castle beyond, within an elaborate border of palm fronds and foliage, with fruit issuing from corner cornucopiae on a brown ground
126 x 124¹⁄₂ in. (320 x 316 cm.)

Anonymous sale; Sotheby's, London, 27 April 2010, lot 12.

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Lot Essay

The distinct style of this tapestry is evocative of a very specific period for tapestry weaving in Flanders in the early 16th century, which was noted for the vibrancy of borders and the accurate and detailed depictions of contemporary costume. The border of this tapestry is unusual in incorporating particularly detailed scrolling cornucopiae to the corners, and the fact that the foot of the male figure in the foreground is emerging from the picture plane is notable. For stylistically comparable early 16th century Classical Brussels tapestries, see A. Cavallo, Textiles - Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, 1986, pp. 48-55, for a group of five weavings from The Story of Cyrus, woven Brussels, circa 1535-1550, which have a similar distinctive border and narrative figural composition. Two weavings from the series, depicting A Messenger from Harpagos bringing Cyrus a letter concealed in a Hare, and King Astyages Harpagos in Command of his Army, attributed to Jan der Moyen, and bearing the Brussels town mark, were sold at Sotheby's, London, 26th May 1967, lots 38 & 39. For various series with comparable compositions, all attributed to Brussels and of the same period, see an allegorical series of The Triumph of Petrarch, mythological tapestries from The Story of Hercules, and Biblical series from The Story of Moses, illustrated and discussed in Catàlogo de Tapices del Patrimonio Nacional, Madrid, 1986, vol. I, pp. 273-278, pp. 155-162, pp. 171-175, respectively.