Wool and Silk.
H. 12 ft. 8 in.
W. 8 ft.
TRIUMPH OF DIANA: The goddess in a blue robe, bearing her bow and arrows, drives a pale-blue chariot on which a nymph is tied prisoner. Love, whose wings are beautifully multicolored, also is a prisoner. Diana's attendants, garbed in blue and red tunics, follow on foot, one in the foreground in a green tunic leading a large grey-hound. In the border shells alternate with crescents on a blue ground and in the corners above are crescents and rams' heads. The mottoes "Non Frusta Jupiter Am Bas" and "Sic Immota Manet" are in the upper and lower borders respectively.[27]
The tapestry was evidently made for Diane de Poitiers, mistress of Henry II, the subject being chosen as a personal tribute.
Formerly in the Collection of Edouard Kann, Paris.
Aside from its evident beauty, the piece is important because it is one of the few remaining examples of the work of the Fontainebleau looms, which adapted to tapestry the characteristic Italian-French Renaissance decoration that was formulated in the frescoes of Fontainebleau. There are few documents left on these looms, but it is known that le Primatice made designs for tapestries woven there, and, judging from the drawing of the figures with the long limbs and heavily marked muscles that reflect the influence of Michael Angelo, and the contour of the small heads with the hair flowing back and the classical features, together with such other details as the long flexible fingers, this piece would seem to be an example of his work. If not by le Primatice, it was certainly done directly under his influence; but it could scarcely be by Baudouin, judging from the recently discovered set in the Viennese exhibition,[28] for it has more poise and clarity of space than any of those tapestries.
The Crucifixion No. 35
