This tapestry depicts a humorous feature of Italian seventeenth century gardens: hidden levers—in this case set off by the figure in the left foreground—that produce jets of water to surprise unsuspecting strollers, like the woman at right with her hand raised in surprise. The Surprise is one of a set of four garden tapestries bought by Isabella Gardner in 1903. This set was once part of the Barberini collection, one of the great Roman collections of the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.