Object details
Accession number
T24w1
Primary Creator
Flemish, Flanders
Full title
Proverbs
Creation Date
about 1500
Provenance
Purchased by Isabella Stewart Gardner from the art dealer Seligmann & Co., Paris on 11 March 1905 for $8,000, through the painter Joseph Lindon Smith (1863-1950).
Dimensions
282 x 221 cm (111 x 87 in.)
Display Media
Wool warp (5 yarns per cm); wool and silk wefts.
Web Commentary
Isabella Stewart Gardner kept meticulous records of many of her acquisitions. In keeping with this legacy, object information is continually being reviewed, updated, and enriched in order to give greater access to the collection.
Permanent Gallery Location
Third Floor Stairhall and Stairway
Bibliography
Ella S. Siple. "A Flemish 'Proverb' Tapestry in Boston." The Burlington Magazine for Connoisseurs (1933), pp. 29-31, 35, pl. A. (as 15th century)
Gilbert Wendel Longstreet and Morris Carter. General Catalogue (Boston, 1935), p. 197-98, pl. 10. (as Flemish, late 15th century)
Jan Grauls. "Een vijftiendeeuws spreekwoorden." Artes Textiles (1956), pp. 14-26. (as from "a border town," possibly Tournai or Arrais)
Jean-Paul Asselberghs. Les tapisseries flamandes aux États-Unis d'Amérique (Brussels, 1974), p. 12. (as Flemish, end of the 15th century)
Donald King et al. "A Fifteenth Century Tapestry of The Story of Ahab." Fenway Court (1975), p. 3. (as 15th century)
Rollin van N. Hadley. Museums Discovered: The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1981), pp. 162-63, ill. (as Flemish, 1475-1500)
Adolph S. Cavallo. Textiles: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum (Boston, 1986), pp. 30-31, no. 3. (as Flemish, 1475-1500)
Jennifer R. Gross et al. Threads of Dissent. Exh. cat. (Boston: Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, 1999), pp. 9-10, ill. (as Flemish, 1475-1500)
Margaret A. Sullivan. "'Muti Magistri (Silent Teachers)': Learning from the Breug(h)els, Father and Son" in Wolfgang Mieder (ed.). The Netherlandish Proverbs. An International Symposium on the Pieter Brueg(h)els. Supplement Series of Proverbium, Yearbook of International Proverb Scholarship (Vermont, 2004), fig. 3. (as about 1500)
Margaret A. Sullivan. Bruegel and the Creative Process, 1559-1563 (Burlington, Vermont, 2010), 22-23, fig. 6. (as about 1500)
Rights and reproductions
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