The Unicorn Tapestries

The Unicorn Tapestries or the Hunt of the Unicorn (French: La Chasse à la licorne) is a series of seven tapestries made in the South Netherlands around 1495–1505, and now in The Cloisters in New York. They were possibly designed in Paris and show a group of noblemen and hunters in pursuit of a unicorn through an idealised French landscape. The tapestries were woven in wool, metallic threads, and silk. The vibrant colours, still evident today, were produced from dye plants: weld (yellow), madder (red), and woad (blue).^[2]

First recorded in 1680 in the Paris home of the Rochefoucauld family, the tapestries were looted during the French Revolution. Rediscovered in a barn in the 1850s, they were hung at the family's Château de Verteuil. Since then they have been the subject of intense scholarly debate about the meaning of their iconography, the identity of the artists who designed them, and the sequence in which they were meant to be hung. Although various theories have been put forward, as yet nothing is known of their early history or provenance, and their dramatic but conflicting narratives have inspired multiple readings, from chivalric to Christological. Variations in size, style, and composition suggest they come from more than one set,^[3] linked by their subject matter, provenance, and the mysterious AE monogram which appears in each. One of the panels, "The Mystic Capture of the Unicorn", survives as just two fragments.^[4]

^ Freeman 1973–1974, p. 4.
^ "How the Tapestries Came to the Met". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 7 May 2006. Retrieved 31 October 2017.
^ Colburn, Kathrin (2010). "Three Fragments of the 'Mystic Capture of the Unicorn' Tapestry" (PDF). Metropolitan Museum Journal. 45: 97–106. doi:10.1086/met.45.41558055. S2CID 192479802 – via JSTOR.
^ Technically, there were three fragments, one of which much smaller than the others, which has since been joined with the rightmost fragment. Colburn, Kathrin (2010). "Three Fragments of the 'Mystic Capture of the Unicorn' Tapestry" (PDF). Metropolitan Museum Journal. 45: 97–106. doi:10.1086/met.45.41558055. S2CID 192479802 – via JSTOR.

[FOOTNOTEFreeman1973–19744-1] Freeman 1973–1974, p. 4.

[2] "How the Tapestries Came to the Met". Metropolitan Museum of Art. Archived from the original on 7 May 2006. Retrieved 31 October 2017.

[3] Colburn, Kathrin (2010). "Three Fragments of the 'Mystic Capture of the Unicorn' Tapestry" (PDF). Metropolitan Museum Journal. 45: 97–106. doi:10.1086/met.45.41558055. S2CID 192479802 – via JSTOR.

[4] Technically, there were three fragments, one of which much smaller than the others, which has since been joined with the rightmost fragment. Colburn, Kathrin (2010). "Three Fragments of the 'Mystic Capture of the Unicorn' Tapestry" (PDF). Metropolitan Museum Journal. 45: 97–106. doi:10.1086/met.45.41558055. S2CID 192479802 – via JSTOR.

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