Luis de Morales (Badajoz, circa 1510/1511 - Alcántara, 1586), Pietà, circa 1570-1580. Oil on walnut, 58.4 x 46.2 cm (23 x 18.2 in.). Image courtesy Mullany, Stand 373 at TEFAF New York Fall 2018.

Provenance: Private collection, Portugal, since circa 1870; Thence by descent.

Retable Panel with Saint George and the Dragon, Spain, first quarter 16th century. Walnut, with original polychrome and gilding, 134 x 57 cm (52.8 x 22.4 in.). Image courtesy Mullany, Stand 373 at TEFAF New York Fall 2018.

The present panel depicting Saint George and the Dragon was originally part of an altarpiece produced in Spain in the first quarter of the 16th century. Flanked by angels, the winged Saint spears the horned and clawed beast who weighs the souls of the dammed.

Originating in the Golden Legend, the tale of Saint George and the Dragon tells the story of a town in Libya that is preyed upon by a plague-bearing dragon. The townspeople appease the beast by feeding it two sheep a day until they eventually run out of livestock and are forced to sacrifice their daughters, one a day chosen by lot. When the king’s own daughter is selected to be fed to the dragon, he makes desperate appeals to his countrymen to spare her, but is refused. Dressed as a virginal bride, the princess goes to her fate, but just as the dragon appears, so does a travelling Christian knight. Saint George valiantly slays the dragon, thereby saving the princess and the town, which subsequently converts to Christianity in response to the crusader’s rescue.

This work is in excellent condition with extensive remains of the orignal polychrome and gilding.

Provenance: Private collection, France. 

Anna Selbdritt, Flemish, Brabant, circa 1500-1520. Oak, with traces of original polychrome and gilding, 36 x 29 x 18 cm (14 x 11.4 x 7 in.). Image courtesy Mullany, Stand 373 at TEFAF New York Fall 2018.

In this small group the Christ Child is positioned between the Virgin, her left arm wrapped around him, and his grandmother, Saint Anne, on whom he rests his feet, a basket of fruit on her lap. Both daughter and mother are beautiful, the Virgin with a delicate face, a crown on her head, her long wavy curls cascading down her back, Saint Anne with a refined elegant poise, her veil and guimpe framing her older but dignified features. Both with eyes gazing forward, the scene is one of peace and serenity.

With their elegant high foreheads, the Virgin and Saint Anne in our group recalls the work of the prominent Brussels sculptor Jan Borreman. The extensive folds of drapery, which outline clearly the knees of both women falling to gather on the floor covering their shoes, are particularly well executed with deep undercuts and significant remains of the original colouring. Similar design may be seen on an Anna Selbdritt now in the Museum Catharijneconvent (Inv. no. ABM bh313, see van Vlierden, op. cit.,) a work also framed by a broad bench with carved sides. In the present sculpture, each figure is seated on throne benches placed at right angles on top a raised platform.

Saint Anne is not a biblical figure. She appears first in a second century apocryphal infancy gospel as part of the story of the Saviour’s birth and maternal ancestry. Over the centuries her story circulated throughout eastern and western Christendom but it was not until the late Middle Ages that the cult of Saint Anne became firmly established. Especially popular in German speaking regions from the 14th century, the veneration of Saint Anne as chaste wife, mother and grandmother reached its zenith between 1480 and 1520. She was seen as a figure of devotion among medieval Christians who found solace in her closeness to Jesus and Mary. The increase in her popularity followed extensive promotion of the saint's cult by Netherlandish and Rheinland German humanists and reforming clerics that began in the 1480s in the manifestation of the founding of confraternities dedicated to her and in the writing of lives and other texts. These texts, republished elsewhere in Germany, were of crucial importance in heightening Saint Anne’s popularity for they attributed to her a power unprecedented in saints’ lives – the power to assist in the achievement of salvation. Artists sought to emphasise this power derived from her physical connection to the Redeemer and his mother. The power ascribed to Saint Anne had special appeal for German Christians who, in the 15th century, were showing a heightened concern over individual salvation. The attempt to encourage membership in Saint Anne confraternities was part of a larger clerical program to control and shape lay piety in the late medieval North, in part in response to anxieties over lay, especially lay women's, religious activities, and in part in response to financial pressures.

In the most widely reproduced troupe, known as Anna Selbdritt ('Anne herself the third'), Saint Anne symbolizes family life. She is believed to have married three times, having one daughter with each husband. In our beautifully balanced and well preserved example, both she and the Virgin are cloaked in voluminous robes with exquisitely carved deep folds and traces of the original polychrome and gilding discernible. As is typical, Saint Anne wears the veil of a widow. With the hint of a half-smile, her face is warm and inviting, her gaze tranquil and reassuring. This charming representation of three generations of the Holy Family shows an intimacy and tenderness which is often apparent in this type of iconography.

Provenance: Private collection, France.

Saint Margaret, Flemish, Mechelen, circa 1510-1520. Walnut, with original polychrome and gilding, 45 x 13.5 x 9 cm (17.7 x 5.3 x 3.5 in.). Image courtesy Mullany, Stand 373 at TEFAF New York Fall 2018. 

This depiction of Saint Margaret, carved three-quarters in the round, the reverse flattened, and designed for a frontal and slightly lowered viewpoint, shows the saint dressed in a fashionable bodice, long gown and voluminous cloak, her foot resting on her attribute, the dragon, its head and tail now lost. With extensive original polychrome and gilding and marked on the reverse with the city mark of Mechelen, our sculpture, produced circa 1510-1520, shows the young martyr as elegant, graceful and refined, her high forehead and angelic facial features typical of the small devotional works crafted there during the early decades of the 16th century. With exquisite craquelure, delicate features and her long golden rope-like plats emerging from beneath her laced and beaded headpiece, the present work is a beautifully balanced representation of the legend of a popular and venerated female saint.

Saint Margaret of Antioch, also known as Margherita, Margaritha and Margaretha, was a virgin and martyr whose story is known from a collection of legends rather than contemporary historical accounts. Her father, Theodosius, was a pagan priest in Pisidian, Antioch (modern Turkey). Her mother died when Margaret was an infant and she was raised by a Christian woman. Margaret’s father disowned her, her nurse adopted her and Margaret converted, consecrating herself and her virginity to God. When she was 15 years old, Olybrius, a Roman prefect, saw the beautiful young Margaret as she was tending sheep and tried to seduce her. When she refused his advances, the official denounced her as an outlaw Christian. She was arrested, thrown into prison and tortured. When she refused to yield to the pagan gods, the authorities tried to burn her, then boil her in a large cauldron, each time her prayers keeping her unharmed. She was finally martyred by beheading.

It was during her time in prison that Saint Margaret prayed that ‘the fiend that had fought with her would visibly show him unto her.’ Satan appeared to her in the form of a dragon. Part of her story involves her being swallowed by the dragon and then escaping safely when the cross she carried irritated the dragon‘s innards, according to one version of the legend, through its split stomach, on another, through its spitting her out. This story explains why she has long been associated with pregnancy, labour, and childbirth. Saint Margaret is sometimes depicted as stepping out from the stomach of the dragon. Other images show her emerging from a dragon’s mouth or leading it tied to a chain. In our example, she rests her foot on the dragon. Saint Margaret is part of a group of saints known as the Fourteen Holy Helpers.

Provenance: Private collection, Germany. 

A Millefleurs Tapestry with the coat of arms and initials of Christine de Lechy, Flemish, attributed to Bruges, Second quarter 16th century, before 1548. Wool and silk, 169 x 390 cm (66.5 x 153.5 in.). Image courtesy Mullany, Stand 373 at TEFAF New York Fall 2018.

The dark blue background with large climbing trails of foliage and flowers of this millefleurs tapestry provides a colorful setting for the central coat of arms suspended by ribbons and carried by two winged cherubs flanked by the initials ‘CL’. This is a reference to the widow Christine de Lechy, née Zelighs, who was born around 1440 originating from Sint-Truiden (Saint Trond) in the province of Limburg. Her late husband, Henri de Lechy, was an alderman of the city, a prosperous commercial hub during the Renaissance between Antwerp and Cologne. This central motif is encircled by a laurel wreath, the carpet of leaves and flowers adorned with a single red squirrel perched near the left hand inner border. The upper and lower borders are resplendent with curling tendrils ending in grotesque masks at each end, the two side borders with flower vases sitting on top of balusters with acanthus leaves in an ornamental Renaissance style.

Typical of the period from the second half of the 15th century to the first third of the 16th, millefleurs is a term associated with tapestries that have a dark blue background scattered with flowers, sometimes stylised and often represented in a repetitive pattern. The carpet of flowers acts as a setting for figures, animals or arms motifs and reflects a certain realism and love of nature.

In the second half of the 15th century this subject developed into a specific genre in tapestry making. The workshops of Tournai and Bruges, and also Enghien, specialised in this type of work which soon became a commercial success these objects finding buyers in the remotest corners of Europe. Millefleurs often featured in the tapestry collections of the inventories of property of deceased kings and wealthy nobles. Early 16th century artists also showed a penchant for the subject, often using millefleurs as backdrops for portrait paintings.

The present tapestry is a rare and exquisite example of the genre. It bears a strong resemblance to several characteristic tapestries woven in Bruges. A fragment of the millefleurs with the coat of arms of the Franc de Bruges, now in the Stedelijke Musea in Bruges (Inv. 0.1.XVII), for example, has analogous trails of flowers over a dark blue background and a similar laurel wreath. That work also features a lone squirrel which very much resembles the one seen here. It is not only the stylised rendering of the flora, the range of colours and the ornamentation of the laurel wreath which mirror the surviving Bruges specimens from about 1520 – 1530, but also the borders. The vases of flowers on the side borders of the present example, the curling foliage and the grotesque masks are set in Renaissance-style ornamentation that is strikingly similar to two extensively documented Bruges millefleurs with medallions which, at the time, were in the Blondell collection (see Delmarcel, La Tapisserie Flamande, op. cit., p. 185). Both of those works have cherubs, grotesque masks and decorative vases the aesthetics of whose design is closely analogous to our tapestry.

This type of ornamentation cannot, however, be attributed exclusively to Bruges. Other weaving centres in Southern Netherlands, such as Enghien, followed meticulously the latest stylistic trends during this period and produced exceptional specimens such as the larger and later ‘Lewknor Armorial Table Carpet’, now in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Acc. no. 59.33). Once again, we see a coat of arms, three in this example, girt with laurel wreaths, and, in the middle, two putti who carry the central motif by means of ribbons, the scenery consisting of stylised leaves and flowers against a dark blue background.

The heraldic symbols in our tapestry provide an attractive hypothesis as to the exact origin of the work, although it is difficult to be definitive. Numerous archival documents reveal Sint-Truiden to have been a highly productive weaving centre in the 16th century. Yet only two tapestries can be attributed to the town with any certainty, these being the altar cloth ‘The Virgin of the Apocalypse with Saint Catherine and Saint Barbara’ in the Cloisters Collection in the Metropolitan Museum of Art (Acc. no. 57.35) and a related antependium depiciting Saints Mary Magdalene, Agnes and Elizabeth of Hungary in the Burrell Collection in Glasgow (Inv. 46.125).

It is also very tempting to associate this tapestry with the weaving centre that is linked directly to the origins of Christine de Lechy. She was the mother of two famous women: Mechtildis and Aleydis de Lechy, both abbess of the prestigious Cistercian Abbey of Herkenrode, located in the vicinity of Sint-Truiden and which, during the 16th century, was the richest convent in Southern Netherlands until its dissolution during the French Revolution.

Abbess Mechtildis famously transformed the former Gothic abbey into a Renaissance edifice by way of important commissions from leading artists and workshops across the Netherlands. Seven of the stained glass windows she had manufactured for the church (c. 1532) now decorate Lichfield Cathedral. The impressive majolica floor from the church choir (c.1532) is now housed in the Musées d'Art et d'Histoire in Brussels. Her antiphonarium, a collection of richly decorated liturgical songs on parchment (c. 1544), is now in the library of the Cistercian abbey of Gethsemani in Kentucky. She also commissioned richly decorated ecclesiastic vestments, altar hangings, the Saint Florentin reliquary and many other important artworks. Her death in 1548 is consequently the terminus ante quem of our tapestry.

Abbess Mechtildis’ extensive patronage undoubtedly inspired her mother Christine de Lechy to further introduce the latest Renaissance taste in the region around Sint-Truiden. However, our tapestry is unlikely to have been produced by way of private commission from Christine de Lechy for her personal use. It was almost certainly part of her dowry, presented to the convent when her daughter entered the congregation or, more precisely, when she was appointed abbess in 1521. Such dowries reflected directly the social status and wealth of the family. It is likely that our tapestry decorated the chapel of the convent’s church. This explains the extremely fine quality of the weaving which surpasses the weaving quality of private domestic tapestries. It also explains its remarkably fresh condition as such pieces were only displayed on particular days of the ecclesiastic calendar remaining otherwise rolled and protected, and, most significantly, its horizontal shape and size corresponds with the dorsalia or choir tapestries of the period.

Highly prized for their rarity and decorative nature, millefleurs are to be found in the most prestigious private and institutional collections, including superb specimens with flower patterns similar to those of the present work, in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Rijksmuseum and the Musée de Cluny.

Of the highest museum quality and in an exceptional state of preservation, this masterpiece of the early 16th century Flemish weaving tradition has an impressive pedigree following its probable placement in the Abbey of Herkenrode, it having been later in the Pereire collection. The Pereire brothers, Emile and Isaac, were leading French industrialists in the late 19th century who financed major projects such as the Metro de Paris and filled their Parisian townhouse, the Hotel Pereire next to the Parc Monceau, with the most extraordinary work of art, including our tapestry.

We are grateful to Mr Jean-Jacques van Ormelingen, President, Association Royale Office Généalogique et Héraldique de Belgique, Member, Flemish Heraldic Council, for providing the heraldic study of the coat of arms and initials of the work. 

Almost certainly commissioned and gifted by Christine de Lechy to the Cistercian Abbey of Herkenrode, Sint-Truiden, circa 1521; Collection Emile and Isaac Pereire, Hôtel Pereire, Parc Monceau, Paris, late 19th century With Royal Manufacturers of Tapestry De Wit, Mechelen; private collection, London.