Details

Object type

tapestry

Title

Verdure with the Arms of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester

Place Associated

Southern Netherlands, Spanish Netherlands (probably) (place of manufacture) or England (probably) (place of manufacture)

Date

before 1585

Materials

wool (warps), wool (wefts), silk (wefts), 8 warp threads per cm, 3 ply s Z

Dimensions

overall: 2920 mm x 2630 mm

Description

Tapestry (one of a pair with 47.2) woven in wool and silk wefts and wool warps depicting Verdure with the Arms of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester. Large armorial with family quarterings of Dudley, Sutton, Grey (de Lisle), Hastings, Valence, Ferrers of Groby, Ashley, Talbot, Beauchamp, Newburg, Berkeley, Beaumont, Guildford, West (de la Warr) and Mortimer surrounded by the Order of the Garter ‘HONY [sic] SOIT QUY [sic] MAL Y PENSE’, helm with crest of a bear with a ragged staff with acanthus leaf mantle, flanked by a tethered lion and a crowned lion supporters and the motto ‘DROIT ET LOYAL’ below against a navy blue field with flowering foliage including Tudor roses, two peacocks and two game birds at bottom. Floral border between red bands incorporating yellow caryatids and orbs.

One of a set of three tapestries made for Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, a leading courtier and favourite of Elizabeth I. The third, and largest tapestry in the set, 'Verdure with the Arms of Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, Flanked by Cartouches with Fountains' is double the width of this tapestry and now in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London (inv.T320-1977).

Elizabeth Cleland states that: 'Two references to the tapestries are included in an inventory of Leicester’s goods: ‘Memorandem the xiiith of Januarie 1585. One new peece for the banketting howse with Hickes to be called for when ye rest are made’, and a second, in the same handwriting, ‘Three new peces bought of Hix: with my Lo Armes in the midell therof verie large & faire: made for the banqueting howse’. Thanks to these notes, we know that one of the tapestries had already been completed by January 1585, that they were supplied to the Earl by the Queen’s chief arrasman, Richard Hyckes, and that they were intended for display in Leicester’s brand-new banqueting house. The banqueting house was a structure in which to host entertainments, almost a miniature pleasure palace, erected in the grounds of his property, Leicester House, on the Strand in London. The three Armorial tapestries would have provided sumptuous furnishing for the space, but it is worth bearing in mind the tradition that such banqueting houses were in no way domestic living quarters, usually containing neither bedrooms nor servants’ quarters. The Armorial tapestries would have fulfilled the double function of providing splendid and insulating wall coverings, as well as reminding Leicester’s guests of their host’s noble status and financial reach.' (Cleland, E. and Karafel, L., (2017). Glasgow Museums: Tapestries from The Burrell Collection, 261, 264).

Provenance: Robert Dudley, Earl of Leicester, 1585; by descent to Sackville George Stopford Sackville of Drayton House, Northamptonshire; Acton Surgey, London; from whom purchased by Sir William Burrell, 15 January 1932, for £2,000 for the pair.

Credit Line/Donor

Gifted by Sir William and Lady Burrell to the City of Glasgow, 1944

Collection

Burrell Collection: European Tapestries

ID Number

47.1

Location

In storage