5' x 5' European Scenery Tapestry Rug | Wool and Silk | Square

A square pictorial piece made in Europe in wool and silk, measuring 5' x 5' and worked with a flat, close surface that reads as a woven picture rather than a floor covering. The composition is a terrace view: two columns at the sides, a stone balustrade across the bottom, and between them a park with a chateau in the distance. It hangs as readily as it lies, and the interior photograph shows it on a wall above a fireplace. Among the hand-knotted rugs we carry, this one is unusual in being a picture first and a rug second.

The design

The scene is a hunt. On the left, four riders press forward on light-coloured horses while hounds course ahead of them through the grass; in the middle distance a stag has been brought down by the pack. Behind, a low wall runs in front of a long chateau with blue roofs, flanking pavilions and a domed outbuilding, with autumn trees to either side and one bare-branched tree reaching into the sky. A garland of pumpkins, pomegranates, apples and roses swags across the top between the columns, hung from a ribboned cartouche with a pale blue oval at its centre. The foreground balustrade of scrolling ironwork carries a sheet of music propped against the rail, a cello leaning on a draped patterned carpet, and a copper vase behind it. A long-legged bird stands at the left, a heron at the right, and a small slate-blue bird pecks at the lower right corner. The outer border is a band of golden acanthus leaves strung with pink and crimson roses, with a small inscribed cartouche at the centre of the bottom edge.

The colour

The palette is autumnal and largely warm: saffron and old gold through the border and the columns, madder red and deep burgundy in the draped carpet, rose and cherry pink in the border flowers. Against these the park runs olive, moss and yellow-green, and the sky moves from a chalky blue at the top to cream and pale apricot behind the chateau. The building itself is a soft brick pink. Two small panels of indigo and yellow set into the balustrade are the only cold notes, and they pull the eye to the lower corners.

The making

The table records it as hand-knotted with a flat weave of wool and silk, which accounts for the very shallow surface and the fine gradations of shading in the horses, the water-light sky and the folds of the draped carpet. The reverse is finished with a plain woven backing sewn along the edges, visible in the last photograph. It was made in Europe, is listed as recent rather than old, and the condition is given as perfect. At 5' x 5' it sits in the smaller sizes we stock, and it is one of the newer pieces here.