Read the visual description
This is a painting of a scene depicting a landscape with ships, figures, and a floral border. The figures are dressed in elaborate costumes and surrounded by exotic animals and terrestrial features. They interact with each other and objects like baskets of fruits, suggesting a theme related to exploration or the exotic. The painting is rich in color and detail, emphasizing textiles and floral motifs, resembling Baroque art.
National Gallery of Art · Decorative Art
America
design by Lodewijck van Schoor; cartoon by Lodewijck van Schoor (figures) and Pieter Spierincx (background); woven in Brussels in an undetermined workshop
- Date
- c. 1675/1699
- Medium
- tapestry: undyed wool warp, dyed wool and silk weft
- Dimensions
- overall: 341.3 x 496.6 cm (134 3/8 x 195 1/2 in.)
- Classification
- Decorative Art · Textile
- Accession number
- 1950.6.1
- Credit line
- Gift of Lewis Einstein
- Time span
- 1651 to 1700
- Department
- CSD
Subjects and terms
- Flemish
- Decorative Arts, Part III: Textiles, Furniture, Rock Crystals, and Armor
Provenance
Lewis Einstein [1877-1967], London, Paris, and Prague, by 1924;[1] gift 1950 to NGA. [1] James Hazen Hyde, "L'Iconographie des Quatre Parties due Monde dans les tapisseries," _Gazette des Beaux-Arts_ 10 (November 1924): 260. See also the exchange of letters in 1924 between Einstein (then American ambassador to Czechoslovakia) and Hyde (donor of NGA 1959.5.1) about their similar tapestries (copies in NGA curatorial files; the originals are in the James Hazen Hyde Papers, correspondence files, folder: Lewis Einstein, held by The New-York Historical Society, New York).
Inscription
on the central sphere of upper border: AMERICA; on the foremost ingot at lower right: L. VAN SCHOOR. IN. & PINX.
NGA object ID 37627. Collection metadata is reproduced under CC0. This work is included because its NGA published-image record is marked open access; visitors should recheck the source record before substantial reuse.