Advanced Search 
Tapestry: Music (from the series THE SEVEN LIBERAL ARTS)
French
First quarter of the 16th century
Object Place: Tournai, France
Medium/Technique
Tapestry weave (wool warp; wool and some silk wefts)
Dimensions
322 x 337 cm (126 3/4 x 132 11/16 in.)
Credit Line
Sarah Elizabeth Simpson Fund
Accession Number15.1241
NOT ON VIEW
CollectionsEurope, Fashion and Textiles
ClassificationsTextiles
DescriptionThe composition celebrates Music, one of the seven Liberal Arts. The figure of Music, represented as a richly dressed woman, sits on a throne in an arched niche at the left side of the field. Her name, MUSICQUE, appears as an inscription near her mouth. With her left hand she plays a small portable organ resting on one arm of the throne, while the fingers of the right hand follow notes marked on a sheet of music held by an attendant. A fashionably dressed minstrel sits playing a dulcimer in the extreme foreground, at the lower left. Other minstrels playing harp, lute, flute or rebec, and a jester playing bagpipes, form a group in the middle right. A nude child blows trumpet before Music's throne, while a second child plays the triangle among the musicians at the right. A man pumping the bellows behind the small organ comletes the group of human figures. The entire company are depicted in a flower garden, the grass strewn with blossoming plants and the back wall formed of a trellis overgrown with roses. The end of a building and a part of a garden wall appear at the far right beyond the trellis-arch. In the lower corner of the field, just above the guard, there is a scroll inscribed as follows: INVENERE LOCUM PER ME MODULAMINA VOCUM DAT NOTULA SCIRE MUSICA DOCTA LIRE. This inscription has been interpreted in a number of different ways.
InscriptionsSee Description.
ProvenanceMr. Daguerre, Paris. By 1914, Bacri Frères, Paris; 1915, sold by Bacri to the MFA. (Accession Date: December 2, 1915)