A fine 17th century Flemish tapestry

‘February’

From a series of ‘Months’ woven in Brussels, circa 1650-1670, in the workshops of Everaert Leyniers III (1597-1680) after the designs of Jérôme de Potter. In silk and wool, the tapestry shows the labours of this winter month, including woodcutting and gathering and the pruning of a tree that grows over a pergola, in a wide rural landscape while an old lady warms herself by a fire and huntsmen and hounds encircle a wolf before a distant town and mountainous horizon; within a complete border of trailing flowers and leaves.

The subject of the months, and of the seasons, has proved of enduring popularity throughout the history of tapestry weaving. The most famous interpretation, indeed one of the most celebrated sets of tapestry irrespective of subject, was woven in Brussels around 1530, and thereafter repeatedly for two centuries in Brussels, Bruges, Paris and elsewhere. This series, known as The Months of Lucas and previously erroneously thought to have been designed by Lucas van Leyden, was probably based on cartoons by the Brussels master Lucas van Nevele, a pupil of Bernard van Orley. Each tapestry of the set was given over to detailed representations of the pastoral tasks proper to that month, and both in its conceit and in the images used, it is a set to which many of the later designs owe a great debt.

The present weaving dates from the middle years of the 17th century. The set of twelve hangings of which it forms a part were paralleled by an almost contemporary weaving of sets of the Months at the Mortlake works near London, the design of which is very close to that of the Flemish. It is not, however, thought that one is copied and adapted directly from the other; rather it is believed that both sets have a common 16th century Flemish ancestor from which the design was taken, a set contemporary with, but entirely separate from, the Months of Lucas.

A Mortlake version of ‘February’ is in the collection of the Musei di Strada Nuova, Genoa, while another complete set once hung at Melbury House, Dorset (illustrated in ‘English Tapestries of the Eighteenth Century’, Marillier, publ. Medici Society, 1930, plates 21-23, and later in the possession of Vigo Sternberg prior to their sale at Sotheby’s, lots 25-36, 29th February 1996.

Mentioned as a dean of the craft in 1635, Everaert Leyniers III was the head of a prolific and successful family workshop that was established in the 15th century, and which thrived into the last quarter of the 18th. Jérôme, or Hieronymous, de Potter (d. before 1665), is little documented, but is mentioned in connection with this series of tapestries in a transaction letter to the Count of Salazar.

A set of ten tapestries of this Brussels weaving of the subject, from the collection of the comtesse de Xaintrailles, was sold in Paris in 1911, and versions of ‘September’ and ‘November’ hang at the Cini Foundation, Venice. ‘September’ was also sold at Christie’s New York as lot 323, 30th March 2001.

376cm (119”) high and 302cm (148”) wide.