The costumes and the drawing indicate that the piece was made in Burgundy at the time of Philip the Good. In fact, it is so close to the work of one of the most prolific of the illustrators who worked for Philip the Good that it is safe to assume that the original drawing for the cartoons was his work. In the pungency of the illustration and the vivacity of the episodes as well as in numerous details it follows closely the characteristics of Loysot Lyedet. Here are the same strong-featured faces with large prominent square mouths, the same exaggeratedly long and thin legs with suddenly bulging calves on the men, the same rapidly sketched flat hands, and the same attitudes. The very exact drawing of the bunches of grapes parallels the exactness with which he renders the household utensils in his indoor scenes, and the dogs, while they are of types familiar in all the illustrations of the time, have the decided personalities and alert manner that he seemed to take particular pleasure in giving them.
Reproduced:
Les Arts, Sept., 1913; Gazette des Beaux Arts, 1913.
Lent by Jacques Seligmann & Company.
Another tapestry that seems to be from the same hand is Le Bal de Sauvages in l'Eglise de Nantilly de Saumur.
The piece is one of the most vivid and convincing illustrations of the life of the time that has come down to us in tapestry form. The silhouetting of the figures against contrasting colors and the structural emphasis of the vertical lines give the design great clarity and strength.
Loysot Lyedet was working for the Dukes of Burgundy in 1461. He died about 1468. Among the most famous of his illustrations are those of the History of Charles Martel (Bibliothèque Royale, Brussels) History of Alexander (Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris) and the Roman History (Bibliothèque de l'Arsenal, Paris.)
6 GERMANY, PROBABLY NUREMBERG, MIDDLE XV CENTURY
Wool and Gold.
H. 3 ft. 6 in.
W. 7 ft. 6 in.
SCENES FROM THE LIFE OF CHRIST: The Life of Christ is shown in eight small scenes, beginning with the Entrance into Jerusalem, the Farewell to his Mother, the Last Supper, the Agony in the Garden, the Carrying of the Cross, the Crucifixion, the Pieta, and the Entombment.
The scenes in this tapestry were apparently adapted from the illustrations from a Nuremberg manuscript of the middle of the XVth century. Of course, the weaving may have been done later. The simplified arrangement of the scenes with a reduction to a minimum of the number of actors, the relative size of the figures to the small squares of the compositions, the marked indebtedness in the use of line and light and shade to woodcuts, and the courageous but not altogether easy use of the direct profile, all bring the pieces into close relationship with such book illustrations as those of George Pfinzing's book of travels (The Pilgrimage to Jerusalem), now in the City Library of Nuremberg.[3] In fact, the parallelism is so very close, the tapestry may well have been adapted from illustrations by the same man, the curiously conventionalized line-and-dot eyes being very characteristic of the Pfinzing illustrations and not common to all the school.
Lent by P. W. French & Company.