Details

Object type

tapestry fragment

Title

Armorial Tapestry of Beaufort, Turenne and Comminges

Place Associated

France, Paris (probably) (place of manufacture) or France, Artois, Arras (possibly) (place of manufacture)

Date

circa 1350-1395

Materials

wool (warps), wool (wefts)

Dimensions

overall: 2370 mm x 1670 mm 7000 g (approx. wt)

Description

Tapestry fragment, part of a larger group of very similar armorial tapestries (including 46.50 and 46.52), woven with wool wefts and warps of depicting the arms of Beaufort, Turenne and Comminges. Repeated design (four full and two part rows; three full columns) of diamond shapes formed from pointed battlements topped by angels holding crowns enclosing an animal, either a deer, elephant, lion or unicorn wearing caparisons (saddle-cloths) bearing shields of Guillaume III Rogier, Count of Beaufort, later Viscount of Turenne or his wife Aliénor de Comminges within a trellis of elongated storks with heraldic roses at the intersections. Against a navy blue ground.

Other tapestries woven with the arms of Beaufort, Turenee and Comminges are in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection, Lugano, the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, the Rhode Island School of Design, the Guennol Collection, New York and the Hunt Museum, Limerick.

Elizabeth Cleland states that: 'Guillaume III Rogier de Beaufort was an extremely successful statesman, who counted Louis I, Duke of Anjou, and Jean, Duke of Berry among his protectors, and Popes Clement VI and Gregory XI as close family (respectively his uncle and brother). In 1376, he was appointed rector of the papal state in Avignon, and as such was the Pope’s representative immediately following the end of the schism between Rome and Avignon, when Gregory XI elected to return the papal court to the Vatican. Guillaume III Rogier de Beaufort had managed to add to his lands and titles in 1350, when he purchased the viscountcy of Turenne from his wife’s half-sister. William Wells, tapestry historian and former Keeper of the Burrell Collection, has provided copious examples linking the choice of motifs in these Armorials to the Beaufort family’s devices and territories. The battlements, for example, provide a further play on the name Beaufort, which literally translates as ‘beautiful [and] strong’. The storks, Wells suggested, refer to Guillaume III’s seat in Avignon, since storks play a major role in the legend of Agricola and the Christian foundation of the town. The alternating arms in the centres of the roses allude to Guillaume III Rogier de Beaufort’s territories showing, in reverse, the heraldry of Beaufort and of Turenne. The rose was a common heraldic device; Wells noted that it might also have held special significance for the patron since the Rogier family had borne the title ‘Lords of the Rose Gardens’ (Seigneurs des Rosiers) in Rosiers d’Égletons, a town in the region of Corrèze, central France.' (Cleland, E. and Karafel, L., (2017). Glasgow Museums: Tapestries from The Burrell Collection, 230-232).

Provenance: Commissioned by Guillaume III Rogier, Count of Beaufort; possibly Château de Saint-Agil (Loire-et-Cher region), 1846; E Lowengard, Paris, 1901–2; Count Hector de Economos, Paris; with Edouard Jonas, New York, 1927; Frank Partridge & Sons, London; from whom purchased by Sir William Burrell, 11 July 1934, for £1,000.

Credit Line/Donor

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

Collection

Burrell Collection: European Tapestries

ID Number

46.51

Location

Burrell Collection