The Reading Group Reads...
THE LADY AND THE UNICORN by Tracy Chevalier The six tapestries depicting the Lady's seduction of the Unicorn were commissioned by the Paris nobleman Jean Le Viste in 1490, and woven in Brussels on the looms of Georges de La Chapelle. The artist, Nicolas des Innocents, was given the task of designing them.
Nicholas is the hub of the story and its catalyst: he schemes to seduce Claude, the spirited and far from unwilling fifteen-year old daughter of Jean Le Viste, but her mother sends her off to a convent till her engagement is announced to an approved suitor.
Again, Nicolas enfuriates the weavers: knowing nothing about the making of
tapestries, he is dismissive of their art - and, as a Parisian, he is
contemptuous of Brussels. But Georges de La Chapelle knows he will be
hard-pressed to complete the tapestries within Jean Le Viste's two-year
deadline, so Nicolas stays on to help Philippe de La Tour paint the cartoons
from which the tapestries will be woven. The weavers come to respect him as an
artist, but neither like nor trust him. He has designs on the daughter,
Aliénor; for her, he might be a means of escape from marriage to the coarse
Jacques Le Boeuf, who stank of the fermented sheep's piss in which woad was
soaked to fix the colour. It was Jacques who supplied Georges with blue wool.
We were fascinated by the making of the tapestries. Before weaving can start a full-sized cartoon has to be painted from the artist's design. Tapestries are so large that there cannot be empty spaces in it, so these are filled with millefleurs, small trees, rabbits, dogs, monkeys, parakeets - anything suited to the subject. The cartoon is the mirror image of the design and is attached to the loom for the weavers to work from; they work from the back. And the weaving is worked not across but downwards in narrow strips which are sewn together. So when the finished tapestry is cut off from the loom the weavers see it for the first time.
The tapestries of The Lady and the Unicorn are now displayed in the Musée National du Moyen Age in Paris.
The Reading Group's next book will be A Fortnight in September by AC Sheriff.