The French inscription below Honor may be translated: "I am Honor who makes chaplets for my children who are beautiful." Repairs make it impossible to decipher the other inscriptions with certainty. The young girl is probably saying: "To please my friend better, I shall put on this pretty hat." The inscription above the courtier at the right identifies him as Detuit ("Pleasure"). The gentleman at the left may be saying: "Homage to my good lady, my protectress." Essentially an allegory of courtly love, this fragmentary tapestry hanging was inspired by romances of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.
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Artwork Details
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Title:Honor Making a Chaplet of Roses
Date:ca. 1410–20
Culture:South Netherlandish
Medium:Wool warp, wool wefts
Dimensions:93 x 108 in. (236.2 x 274.3 cm)
Classification:Textiles-Tapestries
Credit Line:The Cloisters Collection, 1959
Object Number:59.85
Inscription: (below Honour, at bottom): JE SUI ONNEUR QUI FAI CAPIAUS / POUR MES EN FANS QUI TANT SON BIAUS
(at lower left, below youth): VUT A MON BON / DAM MON GEROM
(at lower right, below girl): POUR MIEUS PEER A MI [?] / AFULERAI CE CAPU IO IL [joli ?]
(at top right, above youth): DE DUIT CE SUI QUI DE [?]/ E IM CI LE CE BIEN AU
Emil Weinberger, Vienna (by 1918–sold 1929) ; his sale, Max Gluckselig and Wawra, Vienna (October 22-24, 1929, no. 239) ; [ Duveen Brothers, London, Paris and New York (by 1939 - sold 1959)]
Kurth, Betty. "Die Blütezeit der Bildwirkerkunst zu Tournai und der burgundische Hof." Jahrbuch der Kunsthistorischen Sammlungen des Allerhöchsten Kaiserhauses 34 (1918). pp. 57–61, fig. 1.
Göbel, Heinrich. Wandteppiche. 1. Teil, Die Niederlande. Vol. 1. Leipzig: Klinkhardt & Biermann, 1923. pp. 88, 244–245.
Kurth, Betty. Gotische Bildteppiche aus Frankreich und Flandern. Munich: Riehn und Reusch, 1923. pp. 3–4, fig. 15.
Crick-Kuntziger, Marthe. "L'exposition des tapisseries gothiques au Musée des Gobelins." La Revue d'Art (1928). pp. 215–216, fig. 3.
Manufacture Nationale des Gobelins. La tapisserie gothique. Paris, 1928. no. 58, pl. 58.
Kris, Ernst. "Die Sammlung Emil Weinberger in Wein." Pantheon 4 (1929). pp. 431–432.
Lowry, L. "Weinberger Art Sale in Vienna Totals $205,000." Art News 28 (November 16, 1929). pp. 3,6.
Die Weltkunst 18/19 (1938). p. 2.
Breuning, Margaret. "France Loans Us an Acre of Her Tapestry Treasures: Gothic Tapestries at Duveen." Art Digest 22 no. 5 (December 1, 1947). p. 11.
2000 Years of Tapestry Weaving: A Loan Exhibition. Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 1952. no. 71, p. 34, pl. VI.
Wirth, Karl-August. "Ehre." In Reallexikon zur deutschen Kunstgeschichte, edited by Otto Schmitt. Vol. 4. Stuttgart: J.B. Metzlersche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1958. col. 848, fig. 2.
"'Additions to the Collections,' Eighty-Ninth Annual Report of the Trustees for the Fiscal Year 1958-1959." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 18, no. 2 (October 1959). p. 58.
Young, Bonnie. "The Lady Honor and Her Children." The Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin, n.s., 21, no. 10 (June 1963). p. 341, fig. 1.
Freeman, Margaret. The Unicorn Tapestries. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1976. pp. 123–124, fig. 154.
Verdier, Philippe. "The Medieval Collection." Apollo 103 (1976). no. 16 n. 3, p. 366.
Cavallo, Adolfo S. Medieval Tapestries in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1993. no. 6, pp. 15, 148–55.
Campbell, Thomas P. Henry VIII and the Art of Majesty: Tapestries at the Tudor Court. New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2007. pp. 28–29, fig. 2.10.
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