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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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The Bayeux Tapestry has been much discussed here and elsewhere but probably Europe's best-known and most popular tapestries are The Lady and The Unicorn (La Dame à la licorne), a series of six tapestries woven by Flemish weavers c. 1500.
So it is somewhat perplexing to read that
| The tapestries were rediscovered in 1841 by Prosper Mérimée in Boussac castle (owned at the time by the subprefect of the Creuse) where they had been suffering damage from their storage conditions. |
Were they pored over by scholars and art historians? Not as such. George Sand, a novelist famously associated with European Romanticism, wrote a romance, Jeanne, published in 1836, which was set in the twelfth century castle of Boussac.
| In 1844 the novelist George Sand saw them and brought public attention to the tapestries in her works at the time (most notably in her novel Jeanne), in which she correctly dated them to the end of the fifteenth century, using the ladies' costumes for reference. |
The 1840's was the height of 'medievalist' enthusiasm drawing inspiration from a (re-)imagined Middle Ages. Dating something on the basis of the costumes belonging to a historical period doesn't sound very sound to moi but apparently it was enough for the museum people
| Nevertheless, the tapestries continued to be threatened by damp and mold until 1863, when they were bought by Edmond du Sommerard curator of the Musée de Cluny in Paris where careful conservation has restored them nearly to their former glory and where it is still on display. |
Wiki states very firmly that its article needs more reliable sources which is unexpected for such a well-known artwork. When I looked up Edmond du Sommerard (1817 - 1885) on French Wiki, the same message appears for reasons unstated. Anyway, Edmond was the Musee de Cluny's first curator and seems to have been spectacularly successful
| he developed the collections of this museum of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, allowing it to go from 1,434 to more than 10,000 numbers |
and it's thanks to Edmond du Sommerard that the museum has
| a Catalog and description of objects of art from antiquity, the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, exhibited at the Museum |
Hmm.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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The idea of a museum's 'first curator' should not fly by without comment. The Musee de Cluny had 1,434 exhibits when Edmond du Sommerard arrived so who was, as it were, curating them? This is a bit reminiscent of Augustus Franks, described as the 'second founder' of the British Museum and who was responsible for adding 20,000 new pieces.
Presumably the Musee de Cluny was a private collection that had become public though why not then the name of the collector? 'Cluny' is redolent but not very informative. But it may be that it was a vehicle for showing the tapestries, with the other stuff window dressing. Again a bit reminiscent of the hôtels being operated by the Soltykoffs in Paris at this very time. The 'princes' Soltykoff which reminds me that nineteenth century Frenchmen having a 'du' in the middle of their name are specially worth looking askance at.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| in Boussac castle (owned at the time by the subprefect of the Creuse) |
I just noticed this and it may assist your enquiries to consider a coupla things
1) What's a sub-prefect doing owning a castle? They are reasonably important, but very firmly republican, local officials.
2) The Creusot family of ironmongers (we know them from their pots and pans) was somehow mixed up with forgeries and fakeries but I can't remember in what context.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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The Hunters Enter the Woods (from the Unicorn Tapestries) hang at The Cloisters, at the Met Museum dated supposedly 1495-1505.
According to the museum.
| They are first documented in 1680, when they hung in the Paris home of François VI de La Rochefoucauld. By 1728 five of them decorated a bedroom at the family's château in Verteuil, in western France. The tapestries were looted during the French Revolution but were recovered in the 1850s |
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/metpublications/The_Unicorn_Tapestries_in_The_Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
Apparently the cipher AE (applied epistemology??) is woven into each.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Presumably who 'AE' is has been endlessly speculated about. It is too much to hope they are the forger's initials and he's having a laugh. Or rather 'forgers' because here's a difficulty. These are stupendous works requiring multiple hands over multiples of time and worth, in eighteenth/nineteenth century terms, not multiple amounts of money. Nor does there seem to be a pressing state motive in producing them -- Gobelin & Co had been churning them out for yonks. They would really only be worth creating in the twentieth century for a bespoke moneybags
| Among the most popular attractions at The Cloisters, the medieval branch of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York is a set of tapestries depicting the hunt of the fabled unicorn |
Hence the hunt for the fabled provenance should concentrate first on the period 1505 to 1680 when
| They are first documented in 1680, when they hung in the Paris home of François VI de La Rochefoucauld. |
Replete with some over-egged provenance
| By 1728 five of them decorated a bedroom at the family's château in Verteuil, in western France. |
Complete with a statutory visitation by Vikings
| The tapestries were looted during the French Revolution |
presumably in both Paris and Verteuil. Then a replay of the Franks Casket
| but were recovered in the 1850s |
followed by another quiescent period before someone reluctantly has to sell off the family tapestries to the highest bidder. O for a single thread from one of them for a carbon test. Even orthodoxy has a reason for doing this since they do not know precisely when the tapestries were tapestried. Fun fact: threads are constantly being removed from elderly tapestries for conservation purposes.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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| Hatty wrote: | The Bayeux Tapestry has been much discussed here and elsewhere but probably Europe's best-known and most popular tapestries are The Lady and The Unicorn (La Dame à la licorne), a series of six tapestries woven by Flemish weavers c. 1500.
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My instinctive guess was this is clearly British to celebrate the Union.
The Lion is England. Scotland is the Unicorn.
Really difficult to understand otherwise on first look.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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It's pure Queen Elizabeth and fiery Mary Queen of Scots. What's the relationship.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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A virgin Queen Elizabeth entraps a unicorn, the Scots.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Here is the Wiki Link
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lion_and_the_Unicorn
The lion and the unicorn
Were fighting for the crown
The lion beat the unicorn
All around the town.
Some gave them white bread,
And some gave them brown;
Some gave them plum cake
and drummed them out of town.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Elizabeth 1st = Joan of Arc.
Warrior virgin queens.
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Wile E. Coyote
In: Arizona
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Maybe she found fame as the Joan of Arc cult developed in France. They, the French, don't realise it's Elizabeth? Maybe they knew but covered the origin, by renaming the tapestry?
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | in Boussac castle (owned at the time by the subprefect of the Creuse) |
Boussac Castle was originally owned by the Brosse family, of impeccable lineage but more and more impoverished over time.
The Chateau de Boussac in Creuse was rebuilt by Jean de Brosse (Joan of Arc’s companion) in the 14th century in order to replace the fortress the English destroyed during the Hundred Years War.
The castle was partially destroyed during the French Revolution. The keep, fortifications, the portal and the towers crenulated roofs were pulled down. The main building, however, escaped the dismantling. The arms of the Brosse Family also escaped destruction and are still visible on the lintel of the main entrance. |
So fifty years on the tapestries are found, in 1841, by Prosper Mérimée, the Inspector-General of Historical Monuments, in a chateau that had been ransacked by revolutionaries (but who for some reason didn't make off with priceless tapestries) and further dismantled in 1794. No mention of, let us say, portable assets turning up in the dismantling process.
the municipality of Boussac, reluctantly, decided the dismantling of the castle in April 1794. The contractor, for a sum of 8,400 pounds (payable in assignats ?), it proceeded from the month of July: he filled the ditches, shave the keep and the roofs "proud" of the towers, cut down the gate and fortifications etc. The building main body yet remained almost intact. Its front door still has, above the lintel, the arms of the family (three brushes carved in stone).
Sold in 1833 to the municipality of Boussac by Pauline Carbonnières, daughter of Charles Henry, became Countess of Ribereix, bought by the department, the castle housed, from 1838, the office of the sub-prefecture of Boussac. |
https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ch%C3%A2teau_de_Boussac
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Now that Joan of Arc has come up twice it is worth pointing out that the French took no notice of her (were, if anything, mildly embarrassed by her) until their version of the Gothic Revival/pre-Raphaelite/Arthurian knights craze, whereupon she was rediscovered, sword in hand, armour tastefully pinched at the waist, to take the place of the over-Republican Marianne.
Chances of her being on a fifteenth/sixteenth century French/Low Country tapestry: 0%
Chances of her being on a nineteenth/twentieth century French tapestry for the American market: 470%
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