Millefleurs
Unicorn in the enclosure - tapestry , between 1495 and 1505
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Annunciation - Book of Hours , around 1500
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Millefleurs (international usage), from fr. mille fleurs = thousand flowers , in German also scattered flowers is the name of a characteristic ornamental decoration that was used for tapestries of the late Gothic period , i.e. H. at the turn of the 15th to the 16th century. The main manufacture for the millefleurs carpets is believed to be in Tournai , which belonged to the then culturally leading Duchy of Burgundy and was an important center for the cloth trade and the manufacture of high-quality textiles. An important millefleurs production is also attributed to the Loire region .
In the millefleurs decor, a secular or allegorical- religious scene is filled with a multitude of plants, mostly flowers. The six-part wall hanging The Lady with the Unicorn in the Musée national du Moyen Age in Paris is an outstanding example of this . In other pictorial representations such as panel painting or illustrations of manuscripts ( illuminations ), ornaments were common during the Gothic period to structure the background that was not yet developed in perspective. In addition to stylized plants and tendrils, rosettes or stars, gold-colored on a red or blue surface and vice versa (see, for example, the French lily banner ) were applied. Often the scenery shows a Marian motif and a garden (Maria in the rose garden or in the little paradise garden ). The patterning of flowers is then associated with the symbolism of Mary in the interpretation of the Song of Songs , 4.12 (“A locked garden is my sister's bride, a closed garden, a sealed source ”) derived motif of the Hortus conclusus .
Millefleurs has also been used as a pattern with many small, evenly or unevenly distributed flowers for other fabrics ( tapestries , wallpaper ) and objects (ceramics, millefiori glass art from Fratelli Toso ). In the second half of the 18th century in particular, the decor was again widespread. Even today the trade offers reproductions of historical millefleurs tapestries.
literature
- Florens Deuchler: The Thousand Flower Carpet in Bern (work monographs on the fine arts; Vol. 117). Reclam, Stuttgart 1966.
