[Sidenote:
_Wool and Silk._
H. 11 _ft._
W. 17 _ft._
]
GROTESQUES: _On a red ground, grotesques, of which the principal features
are: in the center Flora in an arbor on the top of which stands Atlas
upholding the world; two cartouches left and two right with candelabra and
various deities. Below at the left in a small oval medallion Leda and the
Swan, and in the corresponding medallion on the other side Eve and the
Serpent. The remaining spaces are filled with amorini, garlands of fruit
and flowers, gods, and various ornaments. Narrow floral borders, and in
the center of both side borders a triangle._
The triangles in the border are the Deltas, the ciphers of Diane de
Poitiers, indicating that this piece was woven in the reign of Henry II
for Diane, possibly for the Château d'Anet.
[Sidenote: Lent by _P. W. French & Company_.]
For fertile and varied imagination this piece is quite uncommon even
among grotesques, the most imaginative type of decorative tapestries.
It exhibits a most entertaining sense of humor and shows a capricious
independence never found in the more formal Flemish grotesques of the time.
[Sidenote: 37]