The Start of the Hunt, ca. 1495–1505
Southern Netherlands
Wool warp; wool, silk, silver, and gilt wefts; 12 ft 1 in. x 14 ft. 4 in. (368 x 315 cm)
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1937 (37.80.1)


The upper garments display extraordinary variety, including a singular doublet wristband in the Start of the Hunt, as well as waist-length and skirted doublets, short or long jackets, lined or unlined, cinched at the waist or hanging loose, with all manner of sleeves—slashed, belted at the back, or draped like capes.

The range of legging and footwear styles is also encyclopedic—the extra-wide shoes of the period display a variety of closings and tops, and stiff leather or felt knee-high, folded sock-hose are worn with shoes or without. The hose has evolved into trousers, seamed at front and back, tied to the pourpoint with laces or "points," at times revealing a front closing or a prototypical codpiece. The tapestry designer clearly intended to show important distinctions, since some hose are shown as quite baggy and lusterless, while others are rendered with shiny highlights. The former appear to be of bias-cut wool fabrics, known from fourteenth-century survivals, the latter depict exclusive silk knits. Knitting was a new craft that spread rapidly in the sixteenth century, but fourteenth-century paintings of the Virgin Mary knitting, and surviving thirteenth-century liturgical gloves attest to its earlier, select presence in Europe. Here it adds to the many exquisite expressions of sartorial elegance that permeates the Unicorn series at The Cloisters.

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