A late Gothic tapestry, Southern Netherlands, Brussels, 16th century and later

woven depicting a courtly scene with figures in contemporaneous dress, possibly depicting the Old Testament Biblical subject of the Queen of Sheba bringing gifts including gold and precious stones to King Solomon (I Kings 10:1-13); reduced in size, lacking borders

Overall measurements: Approximately 405cm across the top, 414cm across the bottom, 357cm up the left side, and 356cm up the right side. Photograph in the catalogue is very pale and it is not as pale in reality. The colours are much more attractive. Overall appearance is muted pastel colours with some faded reds, blues and greens. The colours are faded overall. The colours are not strident. There are small repairs overall, for example to outlines of clothing and details of faces, and to light areas of weave. The larger areas of cream are repair to the table top and areas of highlight of clothing. Browns oxidised in areas and rewoven, commensurate with age and dye colour. Typically evident around outline of figures or items. Tapestry is not lined. It is recommended that for hanging purposes in the future that it should be lined and Velcro should be attached across the top. Later machine made complimentary coloured banded selvedges applied to the edges. The composition is very detailed and there are some charming elements including the costumes and material designs. Detailed images are available from the department - contact Gina.Tammaro@sothebys.com.
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By the last quarter of the 15^th century, the tapestry industry had existed for more than a century in the Southern Netherlands and Northern France.The importance of the tapestry industry in Brussels and the determining factors of high standards of guilds and workforce, the reliable access to resources, and the established trade networks ensured the continuing vitality of production. It resulted in a range of production from the excellence of the finest series commissioned to others which were speculative productions and sold at the renowned annual fairs such as Bruges, Antwerp, and Bergen op Zoom. From here tapestries reached a sophisticated clientele and burgeoning group, for whom tapestries were a well established display of wealth and prestige. This extended patronage may well have contributed to the compositions of the tapestries which were not specific commissions. These weavings have more ambiguous subject matter, with compositions open to interpretation, sometimes intimating at biblical, historical, classical, allegorical and mythological subjects. Compositions increasingly began to be woven without the narrative banderoles across the top, and without names within the compositions. The figures were often in contemporary luxurious status clothing with some hinting at the source of the subject, and the compositions were inspired by the earlier narrative tapestries, with individual groups and architectural settings across the plane of the wide tapestry, which were extracted  into compositions of smaller weavings, of single groups with more solitary architectural niches, marble pillar surrounds and textile canopies. The reusing of compositional groups and figural positionings was not uncommon, and therefore made the subject identification of the reinterpreted groupings less certain, especially with hindsight.    For detailed discussion see Thomas Campbell, Tapestry in the Renaissance, Art and Magnificence, Metropolitan Museum of Art Exhibition, March-June 2002, Yale University Press, 2002, Netherlandish Production and the rise of Brussels, 1480-1515, pp. 131-145,  Cat. nos. 12-17.
Adolph Cavallo, Medieval Tapestries in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993, pp.421-445, for examples of Biblical and allegorical narrative tapestries, such as The Story of  the Redemption of Man.
Anna Bennett, Five Centuries of Tapestry, The Fine Art Museums of San Francisco, 1992,  No. 9, pp.50-51, ‘Scene at a Royal court’, Brussels, circa 1500, (221 by 257cm) with similarities in style and colouring to the offered tapestry.