Artwork Page for Time (from Chateau de Chaumont set)

Details / Information for Time (from Chateau de Chaumont set)

Time (from Chateau de Chaumont set)

1512–15

France, Lyon(?), early 16th century

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Medium
silk and wool; tapestry weave
Measurements
Overall: 326.6 x 434.1 cm (128 9/16 x 170 7/8 in.)
Credit Line
Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund 1960.176.3
Public Domain
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Location
113 French Tapestries & Illuminated Manuscripts
Print

Description

Pierre Sala, who likely commissioned the set, is portrayed as the richly attired central figure offering a bouquet, a symbol of knowledge, to Éléonore, his daughter. Éléonore is pregnant, revealed by her upturned skirt and the persimmon in her husband Hector’s hand. Hector’s mother, Marguerite, in dark attire, will wed the widowed Sala in 1519. They appear in front of the royal chateau of Blois. The figures at the right convey Sala’s advice to his children. Time (the old man with the staff) with Clio, the Muse of History, standing on his shoulders, is being attacked by a Herculean youth wielding a stick. With this allegory, Sala is explaining that youth is ignorant of the complexities of life and time. The small unicorn at the far right represents the soul. The verse in Old French at the top refers to changing time: One sees Time adorned with green foliage, Sometimes as pleasant as an angel, Then suddenly change and become quite strange. Never does Time persist in one state.
A horizontally oriented tapestry depicts a garden scene with people with light skin tone surrounding a central man wearing an orange cloak and looking toward a woman wearing a dress of the same orange, a man in red sitting at her feet and more people gathered behind them with a white castle in the distance. Three children a fifth the size of the central man play among water running by his feet. At the right, a youth raises a club toward a bearded man with a cane and another person standing on his shoulder. An Old French inscription cuts in to the upper center (see "Inscriptions").

Time (from Chateau de Chaumont set)

1512–15

France, Lyon(?), early 16th century

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