Object Description
‘’Hunting Scene”
Late16th Century, Oudenaarde, Belgium
Material: wool
Dimensions: 180 x 300 cm
This tapestry depicts a hunting scene, which is one of the most popular entertainment in the 16th-century. It has been divided into 3 parts distinctively – the aristocratic couple with delicate and intricate attires standing on the right, the hunters, the hounds and the animals in the mid-ground, farms and building in the background. The whole tapestry is decorated with lush verdure foliage.
Although it is depicting a hunting scenario while it has been represented in a rather naïve and playful manner – the figures, landscape and animals are depicted like Persian miniature painting and the whole composition of the tapestry is richly-detailed. Hunting, as one of the most important social activity and entertainment in the gloomy and dark Middles Ages, the landscape and the figures involved in the tapestry is actually a projection of a utopia with brighter and better living environment.
This tapestry has the classical verdure style from Oudenaarde, which was one of the most important tapestry weaving centre in Flemish region. Tapestry production in Oudenaarde reached its highest level in the 16th century, with work of a very high quality, of a great variety and in large quantities.