French or Flemish, late Gothic, early 16th century

Showing several deer set within a verdant, idyllic landscape, the present tapestry was most likely part of a larger decorative or narrative ensemble. This panel may have evoked the hortus conclusus, or enclosed garden—a theme favored by fifteenth-century tapestry weavers.¹ The inclusion of a fountain, or fons hortorum, further supports this interpretation, as it was a motif commonly associated with depictions of these symbolic garden spaces.

Because tapestries were inherently utilitarian, frequently used to decorate rooms as well as provide insulation, many survive today only in fragmentary form.²

¹C. Adelson, European Tapestry in the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis 1994, p. 107.

²Ibid, p. 16.