Hunts of Maximilian
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The Hunts of Maximilian or Les Chasses de Maximilien, also Les Belles chasses de Guise (The Beautiful Hunts of Guise) are a set of twelve
The original set, completed in the 1530s, were commissioned by a member of the
They were almost certainly designed by Bernard van Orley, the leading tapestry designer of the day,[3] perhaps between 1528 and 1533. Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen has been suggested as a possibility in the past. Both of these designed other tapestries for the Habsburgs. Each tapestry has a roundel at centre top containing the astrological symbol for the month. They probably contain portraits of individuals from Maximilian's court; attempts have been made to identify these. Some pen and ink drawings by van Orley are in the Louvre,[4] and the National Gallery of Art in Washington has a drawing for "August".[5] The borders may have been designed by a different artist; they do not feature in any surviving van Orley drawings.
Sets of hunting scenes had long been a popular subject in tapestry, with sets like the Devonshire Hunting Tapestries (1430–1450, V&A), perhaps the largest set of 15th-century survivals, showing the hunting of bears, boars, deer, swans, otters, and falconry. There are large numbers of human figures and animals arranged fairly evenly across the whole image space, and only a rudimentary landscape setting. Very fashionably dressed ladies and gentlemen stroll around beside the slaughter. But the Hunts of Maximilian are very different, with an advanced Renaissance compositional style adapted to tapestries, and a remarkably forward-looking group of expansive landscapes behind the figures.
The Louvre's set were in the collection of the
Copies
Well over a century after the originals, copies of the original set were made at the
Various copies were made in Brussels in the late 17th century, signed by Evraert Leyniers. Six are in Château of Franc-Waret in Belgium (1665–1676), and three in the Musée de Brou, Bourg-en-Bresse. A set of six was until 1950 in the Château de Keriolet, Finistère.
Month | Topic | Height | Length | Zodiac sign | Image |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
January | Tervuren castle |
4,41 m | 5,85 m | Aquarius | |
February | Homage of the hunters to king Modus and queen Ratio Coudenberg Palace in Brussels |
4,30 m | 6,46 m | Pisces | |
March | Bird hunt; start with a panorama over the city of Brussels from the duke's Coudenberg Palace , as it existed between 1531 and 1533, as far as the towers of the Sainte-Gudule Cathedral. |
4,40 m | 7,50 m | Aries | |
April | Bird hunt, return to Boitsfort |
4,50 m | 5,82 m | Taurus | |
May | Boitsfort |
4,51 m | 5,85 m | Gemini | |
June | Deer hunt, hunting meal | 4,57 m | 5,55 m | Cancer | |
July | Red Cloister Abbey in the background. |
4,33 m | 5,75 m | Leo | |
August | Deer hunt at the "Patte d'Oie" lakes | 4,57 m | 6,82 m | Virgo | |
September | Deer hunt: chasing the deer in the lakes of the Groenendael Priory | 4,68 m | 5,48 m | Libra | |
October | Deer hunt in Boendael | 4,48 m | 5,75 m | Scorpio | |
November | Boar hunt : hunting meal |
4,32 m | 5,83 m | Sagittarius | |
December | Boar hunt, animal caught near the "Three Fountains Castle" |
4,48 m | 6,08 m | Capricorn |
See also
Notes
- ^ Wyld
- ^ Wyld
- ^ Wyld
- ^ Wyld
- ^ Bernard van Orley, The Hunts of Maximilian: The Stag Hunt (August), 1528/1530
- ^ Louvre, "September"
- ^ Wyld
- ^ Joconde
- ^ Metropolitan Museum page
- ^ Le roi Modus et la reine Ratio sont de célèbres personnages du plus ancien traité de vènerie français, composé vers 1370, attribué à Henry de Ferrières (lire en ligne)
- ^ Modus représente la Pratique, et Ratio la Théorie, sont en train de soumettre la Paresse et la Gloutonnerie.
References
- Wyld, Helen, "Hunts of Maximilian", 2011, Upton House, Warwickshire, National Trust