The Elephant

Location

Country: Belgium
City: Brussels
Place: British Embassy, UK representation to the EU & UK delegation to NATO

This highly decorated tapestry is part of a series of six tapestries which were first woven in 1688. The cartoons were produced by the still-life and flower painter Jean Baptiste Monnoyer after designs made by the influential chief designer to the French court, Jean Berain I (1640-1711). Illustrating mythological themes with slender architectural constructions, gods, acrobats, musicians as well as animals, the tapestries emulate the whimsical grotteschi decorations found in Nero’s Palace in Rome. Also known as ‘’Grotesques on a Yellow Ground’ or ‘The Berain Grotesques’, the set proved to be commercially successful throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The Beauvais workshop produced numerous sets for an international clientele and at present there are more than 150 surviving pieces in private or public collections, including the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, and The Metropolitan Museum in New York.

Places

Subjects

wind instrument, pan pipes, musician, statue (as Subject), urn, decorative art & craft, flower, leopard, elephant, bird, man, woman, turban, staff, quiver, pillar (architectural feature)

Materials & Techniques

silk, wool, tapestry, grotesque

Artist

Jean Berain (1637 - 1711)
Jean Baptiste Monnoyer (1636 - 1699)
Beauvais Tapestry Workshop

Title

The Elephant

Series Title

The Grotesques

Date

1690-1725

Medium

Wool and silk tapestry

Dimensions

height: 297.00 cm, width: 427.00 cm

Acquisition

Origin uncertain

GAC number

17549