Fighting Beasts
Flemish
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1580 - circa 1625
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk
Measurements
1.52 m (H); 1.91 m (W)
Place of origin
Belgium
Order this imageCollection
Westwood Manor, Wiltshire
NT 222777
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, Fighting Beasts, Flemish, c. 1580-1625. In the foreground a lion attacks a beast resembling a wolf or a hyena, that lies on its back and bares its teeth. In the landscape beyond a large lizard or crocodile confronts a brown bear. The tapestry has borders on each side with flowers and scrollwork on a brown ground. The borders may not be original to the main field.
Full description
‘Fighting Beasts’ belong to a genre that became popular in the mid sixteenth century, of tapestries showing real and fantastical beasts in landscape settings. Among the earliest examples are a series of 44 tapestries (there were originally more) commissioned by King Sigismund Augustus of Poland for Wawel Castle in Cracow and woven between c. 1550 and 1560, and a series dated to around 1560 at the Palazzo Borromeo, Isola Bella, near Milan (Hennel-Bernasikowa 1972; Roethlisberger 1968; Forti-Grazzini 2007). Both sets represent beasts, real and fantastical, sometimes in combat. The animals relate to representations in contemporary illustrated zoological treatises such as Conrad Gessner’s ‘Historia animalium’ (Zurich 1551-58), which contains accurate observations from nature alongside many of the fantastical beasts that appear in earlier medieval bestiaries. The Wawel tapestries are also partly based on the ‘Physiologus’, an anonymous text of the 2nd century AD which invested the characteristics of animals with religious and moral significance; the Borromeo scenes are also invested with religious significance, each tapestry carrying a Biblical inscription. The Westwood tapestry was woven slightly later than the Wawel and Borromeo sets. Landscape tapestries with beasts in combat continued to be popular into the first quarter of the seventeenth century, when a number of weavers produced tapestries drawing on elements from both the Wawel and the Borromeo series; see for example Forti-Grazzini 2007; Forti-Grazzini in Campbell (ed.) 2007, pp. 87-94; Delmarcel 1980, pp. 560-63). (Helen Wyld, 2013)
Provenance
Acquired by Edgar Graham Lister (1873-1956) for Westwood Manor, and bequeathed by him with the house to the National Trust
Credit line
Westwood Manor, the Lister Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Flemish, workshop
References
Campbell, 2007a: Thomas Campbell et al., Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor, exh. cat. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2007 Forti-Grazzini, 2007: Nello Forti-Grazzini, ‘Brussels Tapestries for Italian Customers: Cardinal Montalto’s Landscapes with Animals’, in Ingrid Alexander-Skipnes (ed.), Cultural Exchange between the Low Countries at Italy, Brepols 2007, pp. 239-63 Mezzalira 2001: F Mezzalira, The Discovery of Animals. Beasts and Bestiaries from Prehistory to the Renaissance, Turin 2001 Forti-Grazzini, 1994: Nello Forti-Grazzini, Gli Arazzi (Il patrimonio artistico del Quirinale), 2 vols., Rome 1994 Delmarcel, 1980: Guy Delmarcel, Tapisseries Anciennes d’Engien, Mons 1980 Asselberghs 1974: J P Asselberghs, Les Tapisseries Flamandes aux Etats-Unis d’Amerique, Brussels 1974 Hennel-Bernasikowa, 1972: Maria Hennel-Bernasikowa, ‘Verdures with Animals’, in Jerzy Szablowski (ed.), The Flemish Tapestries at Wawel Castle in Cracow: treasures of King Sigismund Augustus Jagiello, Antwerp 1972, pp. 191-286