Exceptional and important Millefleurs d'Arras or des Ateliers de la Marche tapestry, with wild men Wool and silk Late 15th century - Early 16th century H: 270 - W: 310 cm Worn. Natural oxidation. Accidents. Restorations. Lined tapestry. Millefleurs tapestries are rare and sought after. This specimen is very interesting because it is archaic and naive. The design is similar to the Nordic tapestries of the 16th century. This piece is different from the usual millefleurs with green and blue backgrounds. Description: While at the bottom three small animals can be seen running around and at the top three birds (two pigeons and a falcon in the centre), our panel has a very specific and rare feature: that of having "wild men" as the main characters, a woman and two naked men covered in long hair. While the wild man on the left is armed with a club, the man on the right appears to be carrying a shield. The wild man or woodsman is a mythical figure that appears in the illustrations and literature of medieval Europe, comparable to the satyr or faun in classical mythology and to Silvanus, the Roman god of the woodlands. The essential characteristics of these characters are savagery, fury and violence. From the 12th century onwards, wild men were uniformly depicted as being covered in long hair. Technical features From the end of the Middle Ages, unlike the great tapestries with large figures, millefleurs tapestries, woven in low plain weaves, had above all the function of covering the walls of the homes of the nobility to insulate them and decoration a secondary function. The millefleurs panels are characterised by the juxtaposition of flowers in a schematised design, and are often, as here, made up of numerous small panels embellished here and there with panels on which appear a character, animal or human, as if suspended in a non-realistic immaterial space. The vegetation, for example, is very schematic and appears to be very abundant. Because of its repetitive design, which is even more schematic than the majority of known panels and dates from the early 16th century, we can say that our panel dates from the last quarter of the 15th century at the latest. Historical context After taking the town of Arras in 1477, the King of France, Louis XI, decimated the many tapestry workshops in the town of Arras, deporting most of its inhabitants, and the activity that had made the town the capital of this industry never recovered. After this, the town only produced utilitarian tapestries, which were far less prestigious. If this panel is known in literature as the Bergamo tapestry, it is not because it was produced in Bergamo, but more likely because it was brought back there after the fall and capture of the city by the troops of Duke Gaston de Foix-Nemours, General of the Italian armies of King Louis XII of France, in 1512, during the fighting of the League of Cambrai at the beginning of the 16th century. Expert : Frank Kassapian