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Welcome to Grand Design

Pieter Coecke van Aelst (Netherlandish, 1502–1550). Story of Creation: God's Anger after the Fall tapestry (detail), 1548. Woven by Jan de Kempeneer (Flemish, active 1540–56). Wool, silk and gilt metallic thread

Detail of Eve, from God Accuses Adam and Eve after the Fall tapestry in a set of The Story of Creation. Design attributed to Pieter Coecke van Aelst, ca. 1548. Woven under the direction of Jan de Kempeneer and Frans Ghieteels, Brussels, completed by 1551. Wool, silk, and silver- and silver-gilt-wrapped threads. Florence Instituti Museale della Soprintendenza Speciale per il Polo Museale Fiorentino, Arazzi 1912–25, 17). Photograph by Bruce White

Welcome to the exhibition blog for Grand Design: Pieter Coecke van Aelst and Renaissance Tapestry, which opens in Gallery 899 October 8. Over the next thirteen weeks, while the exhibition is on view, my colleagues and I will take advantage of this blog to provide additional insight and commentary about the works on view, to hear from visitors to the exhibition (whether online or "in real life"), and, ideally, to spark a conversation about Pieter Coecke van Aelst, who, although no longer a household name, was one of the greatest Netherlandish artists of the sixteenth century.

Those of you who have been following our Tapestry Tuesday posts in the Museum's main blog, Now at the Met, will already have some background on the exhibition, which I discussed in last month's post, A Master of Design, A Master of Tapestry: Recognizing Pieter Coecke van Aelst (August 26, 2014). In anticipation of the exhibition, we have also been adding images to our #TapestryTuesday Pinterest board, which has been a wonderful way to highlight Pieter Coecke van Aelst's influence on European tapestry design between 1500 and 1900.

It is my hope that the posts and discussion published here will provide an interesting accompaniment to the exhibition, as much for those who are already fans of Pieter Coecke van Aelst as for those who are discovering his work for the first time.



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