Tapestry border with Jupiter
Flemish
Category
Tapestries
Date
circa 1580 - circa 1600
Materials
Tapestry, wool and silk, 7-8 warps per cm
Measurements
620 x 2260 mm
Order this imageCollection
Packwood House, Warwickshire
NT 557841
Summary
Tapestry, wool and silk, 7-8 warps per cm, Border with Jupiter, Flemish, probably Brussels, c. 1580-1600. A horizontal strip of tapestry border. In the centre is a framed landscape scene with the figure of Jupiter in the centre astride an eagle and holding a triple lightning bolt, chasing a woman who flees towards the lower right. Behind them are trees, a castle and distant mountains. The central scene is framed on either side by decorative elements in the form of satyrs with vines and trellis work beside them, and above by two reclining figures either side of a hanging lamp and fruit garlands. At each end of the tapestry is an identical seated female figure holding a book in one hand and a cross in the other, against a landscape background and a chequered floor. Either side of each woman is a pair of mermaid-like figures playing pipes, and a pair of small dragons with colourful wings. Around all four edges of the tapestry sections of worn brown galloon and more recent pale brown wool repp have been attached.
Full description
This fragment was once part of the border of a tapestry. Similar borders are found on a number of tapestries woven in Brussels and elsewhere in the Netherlands in the second half of the sixteenth century, with the same basic elements of a central panel with a narrative scene, allegorical figures at either end, and decorative patterns in between. Examples include a set of ‘Episodes from the siege of Troy’ in the Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels (Crick-Kuntziger 1956, cat. no. 45), where the central panels in the upper and lower borders contain scenes from the story of Diana and Actaeon; and two tapestries with ‘Episodes from the Punic Wars’, also made in Brussels in the late sixteenth century, where the borders again have mythological scenes in the centre flanked by allegorical females (Buenos Aires 1939 cat. nos. 31-32). Like the borders on the ‘Punic War’ tapestries the fragment at Packwood is wider than usual at over 60cm, and it must have come from a large, high quality tapestry, probably woven in Brussels. (Helen Wyld, 2009)
Provenance
Ferrers Collection, Baddesley Clinton; bought by Graham Baron Ash for Packwood House during the 1930s; given by Baron Ash to the National Trust in 1941.
Credit line
Packwood House, The Graham Baron Ash Collection (The National Trust)
Makers and roles
Flemish, workshop probably Brussels , workshop
References
Treasures from Midland Houses, exh. cat. City of Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery, 1938, exhibited as cat. no. 53 Exposicion de Tapices: siglos XV a XVIII, exh. cat. Museo Nacional de Arte Decorativo, Buenos Aires 1939, cat. nos. 31-32 Marthe Crick-Kuntziger, Musées Royaux d’Art et d’Histoire: Catalogue des Tapisseries (XIVe au XVIIIe siècle), Brussels 1956, cat. no. 45