The Hunt of the Unicorn
Seven tapestries in which a unicorn is hunted, captured and at last rests in an enclosure in a meadow of flowers.
The tapestries belonged to the La Rochefoucauld family in France and were bought by John D. Rockefeller Jr. in 1922. He gave them to The Cloisters, the Metropolitan Museum’s medieval branch in New York, where they hang in a room of their own.
Materials: Wool, silk, silver and gilt thread
Manufacture: Woven in the Southern Netherlands after cartoons by a Paris painter; each tapestry took several weavers years.
The ground of hundreds of flowers and herbs, woven so precisely that botanists can identify them.
The unicorn in the enclosure with pomegranates – the best-known image.