Embroidered panel with Grotesque decoration
Narrative scenes adapted from woodcuts by Bernard Salomon French
Not on view
An example of the kind of work [Catherine de Medici] appreciated is the Museum's panel of yellow satin embroidered with silk threads. One of a set of three (the others are in the Musée Historique des Tissus, Lyon), it hung as a valence around the top of a four-poster bed. Various print sources were culled for the airy design of grotesques, while its five vignettes derived from Ovid's Metamorphoses- based on the myths of Europa, Actaeon, Semele, Pyramus, and Salmacis- are adapted from woodcut illustrations published by Bernard Salomon in Lyon in 1557. Its brilliant colors, exquisite design, and sumptuous material would have suited the queen's taste perfectly.
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