A tapestry fragment with a depiction of Justitia
Wool and silk tapestry depicting two woman facing left, the figure on the right labelled “Justina” (sic!) with a crown and a sword, the figure beside her holding a book. With three further motifs in the lower right: A woman's crowned head (Misericordia), a female demi-figure and a man's head. The hems of two further indistinctly inscribed robes in the upper right. With numerous older repairs, restored recently and backed with cotton. H 149, W 166 cm.
Attributed to Brussels, ca. 1515 / first quarter 16th C.
This fragment shows several figures from the large tapestry "The Virtues Intercede for Man" from the "Redemption of Man" series woven in Brussels over 500 years ago in the early 16th century. The impressive series of ten tapestries was first published in 1912 by D.T.B. Wood (Burlington Magazine 20, no. 106, January 1912). They present an extensive cycle of didactic motifs beginning with the promise of salvation and leading through to its conclusion. Anna Gray Bennett has calculated that the entire series covered 79 meters of wall space.
She lists five designs that were woven successively: For Narbonne Cathedral (the only example using metal threads), for Don Juan Rodriguez de Fonseca, Bishop of Palencia and Burgos, for the Dukes of Berwick and Alba, for Toledo Cathedral, and for Manuel of Portugal. The central fragment of the third tapestry, which includes the section shown here, is housed in the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco and originally belonged to the order for Toledo Cathedral.
Provenance
Private collection, Palatinate.
Literature
Cf. Bennett, Five Centuries of Tapestry. The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco 1992, cat. no. 13, a further fragment under illus. 39, a complete version of the tapestry housed in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Fletcher Fund, 1938, 38.29.