A Flemish Pastoral Tapestry, Brussels, probably workshop of Everaert Leyniers, after Jerome de Potter second quarter 17th century

woven with equestrian ladies and gentlemen riding through woodland, with distant church and betrothal, all within a narrow floral and fruiting border on a graded yellow and brown ground

This tapestry is lined, with old Velcro in the corners, which needs extending across the top of the tapestry for hanging purposes in the future. Some areas areas where the browns have oxidised. This is typical of this colour (brown) and age of the dye, and shows exposed warp threads as specks of the white support warps. Other areas where the light colours/highlights and silks have been repaired or have been rewoven, for example to the collars and chemise of the figures on horseback in the centre, to the small figure of the bride and figure leaning over the wall in the background, and to the horse's head far right side, and to areas of sky (now stable). Areas of reweave within the border and in the main field, for example to blue robe of central figure. Small areas of repair for example between the reins on the far right, level with the eye of the front horse. There is a repaired curved cut, through the left border, level with the wall in the main field, and a small hole in the brown on the inner border further down the left side. This tapestry is of a good, versatile size with narrow unassuming decorative border and is in good, stable restored condition and of a charming subject.
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The Brussels Leyniers workshop, was one of the oldest and most well renowned families of weavers and dyers in Brussels, recorded from the 16^th century through to the 18^th century. The Leyniers Months were woven by Everaert III Leyniers (1597-1680 - Dean of the craft in 1635) and his sons, Gillis and Jan. The present panel is one of the months from a series of the Leynier Months, of which ten of a weaving of the series were recorded in the Comtesse d'Xaintrailles sale, Paris, 1911. The designs were most probably inspired by the `Lucas' months of Bernard van Orley, which also served as a model for the Mortlake Months, for example `May', which shows equestrian foreground figures, with falcon and leafy branch, in reverse of the present foreground pairing, and was sold as one of the set of Twelve English woven Melbury Months, Sotheby's, London, 29^th February 1996, Vigo Sternberg Collection, lot 29,

A comparable tapestry (298cm. by 366cm), with equestrian figures carrying bunches of flowers and fruiting brances, and a gentleman with a falcon, within the virtually identical border, and incorporating similar background scenes with small figures in the distance, in this panels boating and on the distance bank dancing, see a weaving from a Spanish Private Collection, Phillips, London, 24^th November 1998, lot 64, and a weaving of the same scene within a different border (305cm. by 457cm.) incorporating entablature within the top border enclosing inscription Mevvs (May), and bearing the Brussels town mark and signed (Everaert) E. Leyniers, Sotheby's, London, 30^th April 1976, lot 16, and another comparable weaving, Sotheby's, Monaco, 27^th December 1978, signed Gillis Leyniers (1641-1703).