This tapestry with its rich and complex imagery is the fourth in a series of ten expounding the story of Christ’s redemption of mankind. The series reveals, on the one hand, mankind’s fall from grace and its inability to resist temptation in spite of the assistance offered by the Virtues, and, on the other, Christ’s mission to reconcile mankind with God and thus achieve redemption. The content of these extended visual narratives is drawn from Christian scriptures as well as from medieval allegory, poetry, and drama, and is perhaps based ultimately on a mystery or morality play. Trees, flora, and waterways separate the various episodes. (The subjects are identified and the inscriptions translated in the line drawing.) The individual scenes in the tapestry have counterparts in contemporary panel paintings by Netherlandish artists, notably Rogier van der Weyden. It may be that the unknown designers of the series were painters or were active in a workshop that included painters. The quality and style of the weaving suggest that the series was created in Brussels. This tapestry and seven others from the series were in the collection of Juan Rodríguez de Fonseca, bishop of Burgos from 1514 until his death in 1524.

This tapestry is part of four hangings that have been reconstructed from what originally was a set of three tapestries depicting the Nine (or Ten?) Worthies.  The heroes depicted included King Arthur, Joshua, David, Hector of Troy, and Julius Caesar, along with various attendants.  One of the reconstructed hangings (32.130.2b, 47.101.1, 47.152) shows two of the three Hebrew Worthies in their settings and with nearly all of their attendant figures.  Another represents King Arthur (32.130.2a, 47.101.4), one of the three or possibly four figures that appeared in the original tapestry devoted to the Christian Worthies, together with some attendant figures.  The third and fourth pieces represent respectively Hector of Troy (47.101.2) and Julius Caesar (47.101.3), with attendant, taken from a third tapestry that depicted the three Pagan Worthies.  Other fragments (47.101.5 and 49.123), showing architectural elements, bits of landscape, and the incomplete figures of three cardinals and a bishop, all apparently unconnected to those parts of the three original hangings that survive, are preserved separately in the Metropolitan Museum.

According to tradition, the unicorn cannot be disturbed while performing a magical act. The attack by the hunters thus presumably begins soon after the action depicted in The Unicorn Is Found, and the scene is one filled with chaos and commotion. The ferocity of the battle is conveyed by the converging lances aimed at the animal, the sounding of the hunting horns, and the menacing hounds. Already wounded on his back, the unicorn leaps across a stream in a desperate attempt to escape his encircling enemies.The use of hounds to scout, chase, and eventually attack the quarry was typical practice in medieval stag hunts, and the palatial buildings in the background might be a further allusion to the hunt as a royal or aristocratic pastime. Unlike The Hunters Enter the Woods and The Unicorn in Captivity, this and the other hangings are set in realistic landscapes that enhance the drama of the hunt.

By portraying this lion with his muscles taut, his fur standing on end, and his gaze intense, the artist conveyed the power of this snarling big cat. Medieval beasts, whether real or imaginary, were often imbued with symbolic meaning, as they are in animal fables today. It is not always possible, however, to reconstruct their specific intention in a given monument, and such beasts could be for “aesthetic delight,” as one thirteenth-century archbishop commented. The monastery from which this fresco comes was abandoned in 1841.

John, Lord Dynham was a naval commander under five kings and treasurer of England from 1486 to 1501. The inscription around the garter is the motto of the Order of the Garter, to which Lord Dynham was appointed in 1487. The tapestry was probably woven to commemorate this event. The supporters in the form of stags -- or harts -- refer to Lord Dynham's family seat, Hartland. The repeated device of the topcastle of a warship with javelins leaning against the railing and swallow-tailed pennants flying above refers to Lord Dynham's distinguished naval career.

This tapestry is one of seven hangings at The Cloisters that depict the hunt of the unicorn, a mythical creature first mentioned by the Greek physician Ctesias in the fourth century B.C. In the Middle Ages the animal was best known for its supposed invincibility and for the therapeutic property of its horn. So strong was the belief in the horn's miraculous cures that by the twelfth century the tusks of male narwhals, a small whale native to the Arctic, came to be regarded as "unicorn horns."The Unicorn Tapestries, as the group of seven is known, were probably designed in Paris but woven in Brussels. They are first documented in 1680, when they hung in the Paris home of François VI de La Rochefoucauld. By 1728 five of them decorated a bedroom at the family's château in Verteuil, in western France. The tapestries were looted during the French Revolution but were recovered in the 1850s; by 1856 they had been restored and rehung in the château's salon. No documentation sheds light on the early history of the tapestries, including either their commission or sequence of hanging. Striking differences in dimension and composition have prompted scholars to question whether the hangings constitute one set or are, in fact, from multiple sets.The Hunters Enter the Woods, like The Unicorn in Captivity, is set against a millefleurs background: a field of dark green spangled with blossoming trees and flowers. Of the 101 species of plants represented, 85 have been identified, including the prominent cherry tree behind the hunters and lush date palm in front of the sniffing hound. The cipher "AE" that is woven into each of the Unicorn Tapestries—and repeated here five times—alludes to their original owners, who remain unknown.

1500 / 1520

1500 / 1520

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