The Devonshire Hunting Tapestries
Unknown, Netherlandish · 1425 to 1450
Four huge tapestries, each about four metres high and up to ten metres wide, show elegantly dressed lords and ladies hunting boar, bear, deer, otter, swan and falcon in a green world crowded with flowers, trees and dogs. In the Boar and Bear Hunt, men in tall hats and trailing sleeves drive their spears into the animals while women watch, a lady walks a small dog on a lead and hunters blow their horns. The scenes flow into each other without frames, so that as you walk along the tapestry you follow the hunt from stage to stage. They are the finest surviving set of secular tapestries from the fifteenth century.
The weavers worked in the southern Netherlands, probably at Arras or Tournai, following designs by an unknown artist with a taste for the fashions of the court of Burgundy. Look at the costumes, which are extraordinary: houppelande gowns with dagged edges, turban-like hats, pointed shoes and fabrics patterned to show off the weavers' skill in shading. The animals are drawn from life, especially the dogs, and the plants, tapestry's famous millefleurs, are so many that the ground seems carpeted. The reds and greens have survived remarkably well because the tapestries spent centuries in a darkened room.
The set hung at Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire, the house of Bess of Hardwick, from at least the sixteen hundreds, and was later cut to fit the walls and even used as curtains. They came to the museum in 1957 from the Duke of Devonshire, accepted by the Treasury in place of tax, and were restored and pieced back together. The largest, the Boar and Bear Hunt, has the place of honour in the Medieval and Renaissance galleries, and the others hang in the tapestry gallery upstairs.
Did You Know? One tapestry was found being used as a curtain at Hardwick Hall, and some panels had been cut and rehung as door surrounds.
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