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Otto, Count of Nassau and his Wife Adelheid van Vianen

Bernard van Orley Netherlandish
1530–35
Not on view
At the end of the 1520s, Henry III of Nassau, advisor to Emperor Charles V, commissioned eight tapestry designs from the Brussels master Bernard van Orley glorifying his ancestors in the house of Orange-Nassau. The tapestries were woven by Willem de Moyen in Brussels, but were probably destroyed in a fire in 1760, and this and six other drawings are the only record of the commission. Discovered only shortly before the Museum acquired it in 1995, this drawing depicts one of Henry's fourteenth-century ancestors, Count Otto II of Nassau and his wife Adelheid van Vianden, seated on horseback, splendidly dressed, against the backdrop of an elaborate landscape. Their coats of arms, a festoon, and a cartouche mentioning their names top the composition, but the tapestry would also have had an ornamental border all around the composition. The contrast between the figures and their carefully observed horses in the foreground, and the deeply receding landscape is characteristic of van Orley's new approach to tapestry, which differs markedly from the more two-dimensional designs of earlier Northern artists.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Otto, Count of Nassau and his Wife Adelheid van Vianen
  • Artist: Bernard van Orley (Netherlandish, Brussels ca. 1492–1541/42 Brussels)
  • Date: 1530–35
  • Medium: Pen and brown ink, watercolor over black chalk (recto); tracing in black chalk of the figures on the recto (verso)
  • Dimensions: 14 x 19 in. (35.6 x 48.3 cm)
  • Classification: Drawings
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Lila Acheson Wallace Gift, 1995
  • Object Number: 1995.12
  • Curatorial Department: Drawings and Prints

More Artwork

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The Final Assault on the Boar, or December from a set of the Hunts of Maximilian, Bernard van Orley , probably Netherlandish, Wool, silk (19-21 warps per inch, 8-9 per cm.), French, Paris
The Final Assault on the Boar, or December from a set of the Hunts of Maximilian
Multiple artists/makers
designed ca. 1531, woven 1692–93
Adoration of the Kings, Bernard van Orley or a member of his workshop Netherlandish, Wool, silk, silver, silver-gilt thread (20 warps per inch, 8 per cm.), Netherlandish, Brussels
Adoration of the Kings
Multiple artists/makers
1525–1535
August from a set of Medallion Months, Bernard van Orley Netherlandish, Wool, silk (20 warps per inch, 8 per cm.), Netherlandish, Brussels
August from a set of Medallion Months
Bernard van Orley
ca. 1525–28
The Twelve Ages of a Man: The First Three Ages (Birth-18), or Spring, Bernard van Orley Netherlandish, Wool, silk (16-20 warps per inch, 6-8 per cm.), Netherlandish, Brussels
The Twelve Ages of a Man: The First Three Ages (Birth-18), or Spring
Bernard van Orley
ca. 1515
The Crucifixion, Bernard van Orley Netherlandish, Wool, silk, silver thread, silver-gilt thread (20-21 warps per inch, 7-8 per cm.), Netherlandish, Brussels
The Crucifixion
Multiple artists/makers
design ca. 1515, woven ca. 1525

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