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Tapestry in the Baroque: Threads of Splendor
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January and February (detail)
From a set of the Allegory of Time
Design by Jan van den Hoecke with Pieter Thijs and Adriaen van Utrecht, ca. 1647–50
Woven in the workshop of Everaert Leyniers III, Brussels, ca. 1650
Wool, silk, and gilt-metal-wrapped thread; 12 ft. 4 3/8 in. x 14 ft. 9 1/4 in. (377 x 450 cm)
Brussels mark in bottom selvage at left; EVERAERT LEYNIERS FESIT in center of bottom selvage; IOES VAN HOECKE INV ET PINX in bottom selvage at right
Kunstkammer, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna (T XLVII 1)
See an image of the entire panel.
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Archduke Leopold Wilhelm, governor of the Spanish Netherlands between 1646 and 1656, is known to have been a collector of paintings, but he also initiated a number of important tapestry series. January and February derives from one such set, of which the designs were supplied by the archduke's court artist, Jan van den Hoecke (1611–1651) soon after the archduke arrived in Brussels. For the painting of the cartoons, Van den Hoecke, a former pupil of Rubens, collaborated with a team of Antwerp painters: Pieter Thijs and Thomas Willeboirts for some of the figures; Adriaen van Utrecht for the still-life elements; and Jan Bruegel the Younger for the flowers. The success of this collaboration is readily evident in the strong characterization of the figures and the charming and carefully drawn details of the finished designs. The series comprised six panels, each representing two of the months of the year, along with other panels of Day, Night, the Seasons, and the Elements. Rather than representing the Months with conventional seasonal activities, Van den Hoecke adopted the symbolic program outlined in Cesara Ripa's Iconologia, published in Rome in 1593, of which a Flemish version was published in Antwerp in 1644. The designs were additionally innovative because they developed the faux architectural setting of Rubens' Triumph of the Eucharist series. Hung together, the individual tapestries would have comprised an all-surrounding, trompe l'oeil gallery.
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