A FLEMISH LARGE LEAF VERDURE TAPESTRY
Lot 129 PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION 

A FLEMISH LARGE LEAF VERDURE TAPESTRY

MID-16TH CENTURY

Closed16 April 2014

Price Realised

GBP 47,500

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A FLEMISH LARGE LEAF VERDURE TAPESTRY
MID-16TH CENTURY
Woven in wools, depicting a lion and a leopard within deeply scrolling foliage with sprays of flowers, within a fruiting foliate border flanked to the sides by a cornucopia-bearing male and female herm, the bottom border divided by lion's masks, within a blue outer slip
8 ft. 10 in. x 12 ft. 5 in. (268 cm. x 378 cm.)

Specialist note

COMPARABLE TAPESTRIES AND ATTRIBUTION:
A tapestry that almost certainly originates from the same workshop or same designer as this tapestry is in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (A. Cavallo, Tapestries of Europe and of Colonial Peru in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Boston, 1967, vol. I, cat. 28, pp. 108 - 109, vol. II, p. 28). Not only are the large 'cabbage' leaves serrated and twisted in the same, distinctive manner, but also it has nearly identical side borders. Such close parallels are rare to find for this type of feuilles de choux, indicating that their origin must be very closely related. Interestingly, the Boston tapestry bears a weaver's mark that unfortunately is unidentified, but which relates to those of the van der Cammen and Nicolaus de Dobbeleer of Enghien and an unidentified weaver of Brussels. The same mark is said to be on a verdure tapestry at Leeds Castle, Kent.

The borders of these tapestries are further very closely related to two examples in the Austrian State Collection which bear the town mark of Grammont (Geraardsbergen) and which are believed to date from 1540 - 1550 (L. Baldass, Die Wiener Gobelinss...