The present tapestry comes Brussels which had firmly established itself as the leading centre of tapestry production in Europe, benefiting from the decline of earlier centres such as Arras and Tournai and from sustained patronage by the papacy and the Habsburg court.

The unknown weaver's mark 'PVA' is tantalisingly close to that of Pieter II van Aelst, one of the most prominent and accomplished Brussels workshops active in the 16th century. The subject, of a beautiful and ornate garden with figures engaging in fishing bears strongly the influence of the architect and designer Hans Vredeman de Vries (1527-1607) and the magnificent border showing mythological, biblical and hunting scenes clearly owes a debt to the Italian Renaissance. Subjects such as these were popular throughout Europe in the 16th century and were a particular speciality of the Geubels dynasty. A comparable tapestry with the workshop mark of Jacques Geubels is preserved in the Isabella Stewart Gardener Museum (inv. no. T18w1) and was similarly in an Italian collection, said to have been acquired by Cardinal Antonio Barberini (1607-1671). A further related tapestry, also from the Geubels workshop is preserved in the Art Insititute of Chicago (inv. no. 1896.147) while two further related tapestries from Enghien workshops are illustrated Guy Delmarcel, Flemish Tapestries, London 1999, p. 172-174.

Prince Mario Chigi della Rovere (1832–1914) was a scion of the Chigi family, one of Papal Rome's most distinguished and powerful dynasties. Their seat at the Palazzo Chigi on the Piazza Colonna in Rome was one of the Eternal City's most famous residences and house a large collection dating back primarily to the 17th century when Cardinal Fabio Chigi was elected Pope Alexander VII. The Italian Risorgimento and loss of the wider Papal States had an effect on all the 'Black Nobility' of Rome which saw some dispersal of property and art. The Palazzo Chigi was definitively sold to the Italian state in 1916, while the family had rented the Palazzo to the Austro-Hungarian embassy from 1878, a year after Mario Chigi della Rovere became Prince of Farnese.