Flemish tapestry; Possibly Brussels, 1650.

Flemish tapestry; Possibly Brussels, 1650.
"Diana's rest after the hunt". Metamorphoses series.
Silk and wool.
Presents faults.
Preserves lining.
It has unidentified manufacturing monogram.
Measurements: 350 x 260 cm.
The literary source that inspired the author of the model was the work of the Latin poet Ovid (43 B.C-17 or 18 A.D.) Metamorphoses (Book III, 153-167): Metamorphoses (Book III, 153-167). C) Metamorphoses (Book III, 153-167): "there was a valley full of resinous pines and pointed cypresses, called Gargafi a, consecrated to Diana of the gathered dress, at the far end of which there is a wooded cave not worked with any art: nature with its ingenuity had imitated the art, because with bright pumice and light tuffs had formed a natural arch. On the right side resounds a crystalline fountain with little water, surrounded at its wide mouth by a grassy border: here the goddess of the woods, exhausted by the hunt, used to dip her virgin limbs in the transparent liquid. Once she arrived there, she handed to one of the nymphs, her squire, the javelin, the quiver and the slackened bow...."
In the tapestry, in a lush landscape, we see Diana, easily recognizable by the crescent moon on her head, resting from hunting, sitting at the water's edge with her feet submerged. At her side, the nymph that accompanies her. The border surrounding the tapestry is characteristic of the mid-17th century. The lateral borders are formed by columns, adorned with garlands of flowers and fruits. In the selvage of the right border, in its lower part, it bears the monogram of a manufacture, very possibly from Brussels, unidentified. This tapestry is an isolated piece that was once part of a series. Two other tapestries with mythological themes could belong to the same group. One of them, identified as Apollo and Coronis, with the same borders (the lower one is missing) and the same monogram as ours, was on the art market in 2012 (Koller Gallery, Zurich). The literary source is again Ovid and the Metamorphoses (Book II, 543-605): "Apollo, informed by a crow of the infidelity of his lover Coronis takes his usual weapons and strains the bow bent at the ends and pierces with the dart that cannot be avoided that breast joined so many times with his breast..."(Book II, 600-605) The other tapestry is part of the collection of the Museum of Decorative Arts in Budapest. The subject is Apollo hunting with bow and arrows, his favorite weapons. The tapestry has the same border as the other two and is similar both in the treatment of the characters and the landscape.