Late 17th/18th century Flemish Verdure Tapestry

Late 17th/18th century Flemish Verdure Tapestry

Woven in wool and silk, depicting a dense forest landscape composed of large, stylised oak and acanthus-form leaves in deep tones of bottle green, slate-blue and ochre, the canopy opening onto a sunlit clearing at upper right where finer, more naturalistic foliage and a flowering shrub are picked out in lighter greens and golds. The lower register with a meandering stream and rocky outcrop, populated with flowering plants, grasses and a long-legged wading bird, probably a crane or heron, foraging at the water's edge. The whole within a border of meandering palmettes and stylised rosettes set against a buff ground, flanked by red-brown guard stripes.

This dense, large-leaf type of verdure, sometimes termed a "feuillage" or "bosket" tapestry, was produced in considerable quantity across the southern Netherlands workshops in this period, with Enghien and Oudenaarde particularly associated with the type; a firm attribution would benefit from close inspection of the weave (warp count per centimetre) and any surviving selvedge or workshop marks on the reverse.