Details

Object type

tapestry fragment

Title

Boar Hunt

Place Associated

Southern Netherlands, Burgundian Netherlands (place of manufacture)

Date

circa 1435-1450

Materials

wool (warps), wool (wefts), 5-6 warp threads per cm

Dimensions

overall: 4090 mm x 3630 mm 17000 g

Description

Tapestry fragment woven with wool wefts and wool warps depicting a Boar Hunt. Four aristocrats, two gentlemen and two ladies in chaperons, horned headdresses, and velvet or voided velvet houppelandes or gowns on horseback watch as two men aim their spears at a quarried boar caught between two dogs whilst a third man restrains a further four dogs. Set in a landscape that has been substantially patched and rewoven with a brown and blue ground, trees, including oak trees bearing acorns, flowers and possibly an otter, genet, fox and badger.

Elizabeth Cleland states that: 'Like the Bear Hunt (46.62), this Boar Hunt is part of a small group of iconographically and stylistically related tapestries linked to the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries in the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Of comparably monumental height, the same compositional device is used here as in the Devonshire Hunts, with near life-size figures arranged in two tiers, one above the other. Since this Boar Hunt is missing both left and right sides, it is possible that it was originally part of a tapestry with the same long, low format as the Devonshire Hunts. None of the tapestries in this group of hunting scenes was made as part of the same set, although some, namely the Devonshire Hunts, have been treated as a set since at least the seventeenth century. Instead, [...] in addition to their complementary scales and subjects, the links between the tapestries seem to be partially or wholly reused designs. In the past, scholars have suggested that the Burrell Collection’s Boar Hunt is based on a salvaged section from the cartoon of Boar and Bear Hunt from the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries. Variations of the figures in Sir William’s tapestry can be recognized in the V&A’s tapestry [...]. However, even if the Boar and Bear Hunt’s cartoon had been cut into particular figures to be rearranged and pasted onto a new ground, this would still not reflect the appearance of the Burrell Collection’s Boar Hunt: the figures’ poses are not replicated line for line, their costumes are far from identical and, most importantly, they are not the same size (those in the Burrell tapestry are larger). Furthermore, although the Boar and Bear Hunt from the Devonshire Hunts is a more complete tapestry, providing an impressive sense of these tapestries’ original monumental scale, this accident of survival does not necessarily mean that it was the first edition of this design.' (Cleland, E. and Karafel, L., (2017). Glasgow Museums: Tapestries from The Burrell Collection, 335).

Provenance: Said to have come from La Souteraine, Limousin, France; Mme Demotte, Paris; from whom purchased through M & R Stora by Sir William Burrell, 21 December 1934, for £10,000.

Credit Line/Donor

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

Collection

Burrell Collection: European Tapestries

ID Number

46.57

Location

Burrell Collection East Galleries