The Hunts of Maximilian: November, the Hunters' Meal before the Boar Hunt
Bernard van Orley (cartoons), Dermoyen workshop (weaving) (c. 1488-1541) · c. 1531
The hunters are gathered once more in the forest, and a cold meal is served to two warmly dressed figures with a fire built behind them for warmth. At the left, servants busy themselves around metal dishes set on the embers. At the back on the right the pack is assembled around another fire, where a few riders also warm themselves. The bare trees and the russet grass announce the end of autumn. Look at the long boar spears carried by the hunters in the foreground: they tell you that the quarry has changed. Stag season is over and the party is preparing for the boar. The archer of Sagittarius appears in the medallion of the upper border, and the borders carry the garlands of fruit and flowers around palm trunks common to the whole set.
The tapestry is one of the twelve Hunts of Maximilian, woven in Brussels around fifteen thirty-one after cartoons by Bernard van Orley in wool, silk and silver and gilt thread. This piece bears the Brussels city mark, two Bs flanking a shield, in the lower left selvedge. From the French royal collections, the set came to the museum in seventeen ninety-seven.
Did You Know? The long boar spears in the foreground signal that the stag season is over and a more dangerous quarry is next.
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