Monday 11 January 2016

Story of Noah Tapestries in the Sforzesco

Displayed in the same room as the City of Milan standard known as the gonfalon is a series of tapestries depicting the story of Noah. They were made in the Brussels workshops of Flemish weaver Gillam van Cortenberg in the 17th century.

Noah embarks the animals onto the ark.
One way you can tell this is a 17th century tapestry is the wide ornate border which has no apparent relationship thematically to the central image. This is a stylistic conceit that is used by 17th century weavers but not 16th century weavers, who do narrow plan borders.

A detail of the border.
The last tapestry in the series, back on dry land.

2 comments:

chm said...

Flemish tapestries are absolutely gorgeous.

Susan said...

French ones aren't bad either (although I suppose it all amounts to the same thing, as the weavers were frequently Flemish wherever the tapestry was woven...)

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