The Unicorn Surrenders to a Maiden (from the Unicorn Tapestries)
Artwork Details
- Title: The Unicorn Surrenders to a Maiden (from the Unicorn Tapestries)
- Date: 1495–1505
- Geography: Made in Paris, France (cartoon); Made in Southern Netherlands (woven)
- Culture: French (cartoon)/South Netherlandish (woven)
- Medium: Wool warp with wool, silk, silver, and gilt wefts
- Dimensions: Overall: 66 1/2 x 25 1/2 in. (168.9 x 64.8 cm)
- Classification: Textiles-Tapestries
- Credit Line: Gift of John D. Rockefeller Jr., 1938
- Object Number: 38.51.1
- Curatorial Department: Medieval Art and The Cloisters
Audio
67. The Mystic Capture of the Unicorn (from the Unicorn Tapestries)
Gallery 17
NARRATOR: These two fragments above the doorway show the capture of the unicorn by a virgin maiden—not the young woman you see here, but the one whose arm stretches between the mouth and throat of the unicorn on the right. The animal, now tamed and docile, looks up so intently that he seems unaware of the two dogs coming from behind. The maiden’s fingers are touching the mane of the animal. That the maiden is pure is suggested by the garden fence that surrounds her. Indeed, the enclosed garden was a well-known metaphor of virginity. The female standing in the garden may be one of the maiden’s attendants, who looks at the hunter just outside the fence. He is perhaps summoning the rest of the hunters with the sound of his horn. The tapestries suffered badly during the French Revolution, when they were looted from the Rochefoucauld family’s chateau in Verteuil. For more than five decades, their whereabouts were unaccounted for. Only in the 1850s were the tapestries recovered by the family. Their sale in the 1920s included only the six large tapestries, not the two fragments seen here. These were purchased separately from Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld, in time for the opening of The Cloisters in 1938. Our next stop is to the right.
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