A Flemish Mythological Garden Tapestry Fragment, Brussels 17th century

a composite panel, comprised of four joined panels, woven with life size figures in an elaborate and detailed setting of formal gardens with distant château; with later selvedge

Colours much more attractive in reality. More green in appearance and not so blue tonally. This is a decorative composite tapestry, with evocative early weaving technique. It is made up of four joined panels. From left to right: approximately 68cm. wide, 62cm. wide, 64cm. wide and 63cm. wide. For example see the first panel on the left where the join is visible running throught the edge of far right of the foliage of the fruiting tree, down through the knee and costume of female figure. Possibly previously used on a four-fold screen. Some minor repairs to silks and small areas. The outer narrow border is later (approximately 9cm. wide). It is lined with linen slip lining. It has old hoops attached across the top for hanging, and it is recommended that Velcro be added for hanging in the future. The colours are good overall and there is a range of greens. Charming panel, or balanced colour and composition. Versatile size.
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The present tapestry fragment panel, depicts Pomona, an Italian goddess and protector of gardens, orchards and ripening fruit, being approached by the god Vertumnus in an attempt to gain her favour, and he is depicted in this scene in disguise as a yeoman, which was one of his various disguises, decided upon in his pursuit of her. After repeated rejection he eventually succeeded when he appeared before her as himself, a youthful god.

The original series of tapestries depicting the Story of Vertumnus and Pomona, after Ovid Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book XIV, Verses 623 -771, consisted of nine subjects, and were designed circa 1545 by Jan Conelisz Vermeyen (1500- 1559), in collaboration with Cornelis Bos who designed the borders. Later series were woven to altered designs in the late 16th or early 17th Century, and designs from the mid-16th Century were put back on the looms around 1700, and woven in the Brussels workshops of Martin Reymbouts (active circa 1570 - 1619) and Jacques I Geubels (active circa 1585 -1605).

A later series, entitled The Garden of Pomona, which depicts scenes from the Story of Vertumnus and Pomona, within elaborate formal gardens and landscape settings, stylistically follows cartoon designs of the late 16^th century, which were also woven into the 17^th century, and therefore could have been woven between 1540 and 1640. A weaving depicting The Offering of the Goddess Ceres, is in The Minneapolis Institute of Arts (see C. Adelson, European Tapestry in The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 1994, cat. 14, pp. 147-153), and four further panels survive and are recorded by Adelson, opcit., including two in the Galleria de Palazzo Bianco, Genova, and one in the ING Bank, Brussels, and another in a private collection in Italy.  The present tapestry has similarities in design to the recorded comparable panels cited above, such as attention to detail of formal garden and distant buildings, and recognisable compositional style of figural poses.