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Millefleurs Tapestry with a Lady's Coat of Arms (a fragment from a series of armorial millefleurs hangings)
Flemish
Late 15th or early 16th century
Object Place: France or the Franco-Flemish Territories
Medium/Technique
Tapestry weave (wool warp; wool and some silk wefts)
Dimensions
115 x 111 cm (45 1/4 x 43 11/16 in.) (detail shown)
Credit Line
Charles Potter Kling Fund
Accession Number52.478
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsFashion and Textiles
ClassificationsTextiles
DescriptionThis fragment once formed part of a larger panel whose right half showed an armorial shield, with crest and mantling, supported by a wild man and wild woman. What remains is a lozenge-shaped armorial shield with unidentified arms impaled with those of turquant, set against a dark blue ground strewn with small flowering plants. The initials N and M tied together by a looped cord appear twice, and small flowering plants are scattered on the ground. The arms are those on M.F.A. 49.505.
ProvenanceCharles T. Barney (b. 1851 - d. 1907), New York; November 1, 1916, sold by the Barney estate to French and Company, New York [see note 1]; 1952, sold by French and Co. to the MFA for $3000. (Accession Date: May 15, 1952)
NOTES:
[1] Study Collection of Photographs of Tapestries, Photo Archive Database online, Getty Research Institute, no. 307246. This was the left side of a larger tapestry depicting, at the right, an armorial shield supported by a wild man and wild woman. This tapestry was illustrated as intact in the exhibition catalogue French Gothic Art of the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century (Detroit Institute of Arts, November 16-December 6, 1928), cat. no. 100 (lent by French and Co.). However, it had already been divided by this time, as the two pieces, called "Fragments of an Armorial Tapestry," were catalogued separately.
NOTES:
[1] Study Collection of Photographs of Tapestries, Photo Archive Database online, Getty Research Institute, no. 307246. This was the left side of a larger tapestry depicting, at the right, an armorial shield supported by a wild man and wild woman. This tapestry was illustrated as intact in the exhibition catalogue French Gothic Art of the Thirteenth to Fifteenth Century (Detroit Institute of Arts, November 16-December 6, 1928), cat. no. 100 (lent by French and Co.). However, it had already been divided by this time, as the two pieces, called "Fragments of an Armorial Tapestry," were catalogued separately.