A Dutch Hortus Conclusus tapestry Wool and silk tapestry. Depicting a fountain beneath a magnificent Gothic style architectural canopy in the centre of a garden filled with animals and flowers (lilies, roses, violets etc.). With a lion in the foreground, a rooster and a stag on the left, an eagle on the right and another deer. With a landscape and architecture on the upper edge. The tapestry in Amsterdam allowed Ebeltje Hartmann-Jonxis and Hillie Smit to identify the entire iconography of this piece, which is filled with Christian symbolism; from the garden motif (Song of Solomon 4:12), to the fountain (Fons Vitae, Revelations 7:17) and the animals and plants. H 280, W 195 cm. Southern Netherlands, first quarter 16th century. Restored, with additions, backed with linen. Another very similar tapestry is housed in Schloss Burg an der Wupper, Bergisches Museum. Cf. also Hartkamp-Jonxis/Smit, European Tapestries in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 2004, cat. no. 8.