The Unicorn Tapestries
They were possibly designed in Paris and show a group of noblemen and hunters in pursuit of a unicorn through an idealised French landscape.
The vibrant colours, still evident today, were produced from dye plants: weld (yellow), madder (red), and woad (blue).
Although various theories have been put forward, as yet nothing is known of their early history or provenance, and their dramatic but conflicting narratives have inspired multiple readings, from chivalric to Christological.
Variations in size, style, and composition suggest they come from more than one set,[3] linked by their subject matter, provenance, and the mysterious AE monogram which appears in each.
Apparently influenced by the French style,[5] the elements in the tapestries reflect the woodcuts and metalcuts made in Paris in the late fifteenth century.
[11] An example of the remarkable work of the Brussels looms, the tapestries' mixture of silk and metallic thread with wool gave them a fine quality and brilliant color.
At that time five of the tapestries were hanging in a bedroom in the family's Château de Verteuil, Charente and two were stored in a hall adjacent to the chapel.
And there was a possible connection between the letters A and E and the La Rochefoucauld, which are interpreted as the first and last of Antoine's name, who was the son of François, and his wife, Antoinette of Amboise.
[6] During the French Revolution the tapestries were looted from the château and reportedly were used to cover potatoes – a period during which they apparently sustained damage.
[14] Six of the tapestries hung in Rockefeller's house until The Cloisters was built when he donated them to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1938 and at the same time secured for the collection the two fragments the La Rochefauld family had retained.
Secondly is the story of the classic stag hunt, usually cited to Livre de la Chasse by Gaston III, Count of Foix.
The pure, vivid whiteness of the unicorn is amplified in this seventh tapestry by the contrast of the body against the dark, forest green grass.
As such, Freeman equates the unicorn's seduction by a virgin and subsequent imprisonment to medieval notions of the lover held captive.
[32] James J. Rorimer speculated in 1942 that the tapestries were commissioned by Anne of Brittany,[33] to celebrate her marriage to Louis XII, King of France in 1499.
The team at West Dean Tapestry visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art to inspect the originals and researched the medieval techniques, the colour palette and materials.
