As a background to my new stitching project (A Mon Seul Desir) I want to study the background of the tapestries a bit. In this post I will condense a bit of basic information about the Tapestries.

The tapestry series “The Lady and the Unicorn” consists of six tapestries. Five of them depict the senses (sight, smell, touch, hearing and sound). The sixth is the final piece (or first), and has the title “A mon seul desir”. This roughly translates to “To my one desire”.

The tapestries were made in the late fifteenth century from designs drawn up in France (Paris). These designs (which are called ‘cartoons’) were used by weavers from Flanders (today Belgium) to weave the six tapestries. The sponsor for this work was Jean Le Viste, whose coat of arms is woven into the tapestries. Jean Le Viste was a powerful nobleman in the court of King Charles VII of France.

The tapestries were rediscovered in 1841, by Prosper Mérimée in the Boussac castle, where they were in bad shape due to storage conditions. In 1882 the tapestries were bought for the Musée National du Moyen Age (National museum for the Middle Ages) in Hotel Cluny in Paris by Edmond Du Sommerard. They have been the property of the museum ever since, and are on display there now.