Spetchley - Property from the Berkeley Collection
Spetchley - Property from the Berkeley Collection
AN ALLEGORICAL EMBROIDERED FRAGMENT, GERMAN, DATED 1529
Auction Closed
December 11, 04:05 PM GMT
Estimate
1,200 - 1,800 GBP
Lot Details
Description
AN ALLEGORICAL EMBROIDERED FRAGMENT, GERMAN, DATED 1529
worked in polychrome wools on a linen ground, depicting a male figure sowing seed as he walks across the ploughed field, following a female figure, with smaller figures emerging from the landscape and held in the arms of the male figure, with small caps and pointed ears with bells, the background with narrative banderoles incorporating a date, 1529, set against a blue ground with scrolls of flowers
approximately: 47 by 65cm; 1ft. 6in., 2ft. 1in.
Probably Rose Berkeley (1861-1922)
There are Germanic tapestries woven with complex allegories and moralising scenes, taken from popular literature and late medieval romances. For notable examples see those in the Burrell Collection, Glasgow, and the Basel Historical Museum, some of which have narrative bands, such as those depicted in the present textile. For examples of influential tapestry weavings, of a subject taken from a hand coloured wooduct from the Upper Rhine, dated c.1540, see The Wandering Housewife, Switzerland, circa 1470-1480, with a narrative banderole and background of foliate design, implied by the scrollwork in the background of the present embroidered panel. A panel is in the Basel Historisches Museum (86 by 109cm: Inv. 46.39) and another very similar is in the Museum für Angewandte Kunst, Cologne (87 by 110cm: Inv.N1146). Which due to their small size could have been used as cushion covers.