On permanent display at the Cloisters, the upper Manhattan home of the Met’s medieval art collection, the series is famously cryptic: Its origins and symbolism still baffle scholars. They have been examined, interpreted, and discussed for more than a century, resulting in no definitive conclusion.

On permanent display at the Cloisters, the upper Manhattan home of the Met’s medieval art collection, the series is famously cryptic: Its origins and symbolism still baffle scholars. They have been examined, interpreted, and discussed for more than a century, resulting in no definitive conclusion.

Together, the tapestries incorporate familiar aspects of unicorn lore into a traditional medieval hunt. The animal is bearded with cloven hooves, a milk-white agent of spiritual or medicinal purity. Its horn can heal wounds and purify water: In one panel, The Unicorn is Found, the creature dips its appendage into a stream, making it safe for men and other animals to drink.

There are a few generally agreed-upon elements of the tapestries’ history. They were probably made around 1495 to 1505, a period indicated by their compositions and dress of the people that appear in them. The characters’ poses, facial expressions, clothing, and hair resemble those of Parisian prints and miniature paintings from that time, leading historians to believe a French designer conceived the hangings and sent the designs to Brussels (which was then a major tapestry weaving center) to be made.

Chemical analysis has revealed the three dye plants used to create its still-vibrant thread colors: madder (red), woad (blue), and weld (yellow).

The earliest record of the tapestries is a 1680 inventory of possessions located in François VI de La Rochefoucauld’s castle in Paris. In the 1730s, the hangings were moved to the family’s Verteuil château, where they were looted during the French Revolution. The family re-acquired the tapestries in the 1850s—including a severely damaged one, left in fragments—and sent the six complete ones to New York for exhibition in 1922. There, they were seen and bought by John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who kept them in his apartment until 1937, when he gave them to the Cloisters. The remaining pieces of the seventh tapestry were purchased separately from Count Gabriel de La Rochefoucauld of Paris; the complete series was reunited at the Cloisters’s opening in 1938.

Far outweighing the facts are countless unanswered questions, primarily concerned with the meaning behind the tapestries, the artist(s) who made them, and their patronage—alluded to by the recurring monogram made from the letters “A” and “E,” which appear to be tied together with a knotted cord.

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